What are businesses doing to prepare for climate change?

Climate change has brought millions of dollars of damages to businesses over the past years, yet little is known about how businesses are preparing and planning for the physical impacts of climate change going forward.

In an unprecedented partnership, the University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index (ND-GAIN), Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), and Four Twenty Seven have launched the first annual State of Corporate Adaptation survey. The survey will provide a timely analysis of how businesses are addressing the need to adapt complex business operations to a changing climate.

The survey will provide a timely analysis of how businesses are addressing the need to adapt complex business operations to a changing climate.

• How are global corporations preparing for climate change impacts?
• What are the most pressing climate risks for your sector?
• How are your competitors planning for extreme weather events?
• What climate impacts should you be monitoring and why?

These are some of the questions at the heart of our research – this year’s answers and analysis will provide valuable insight for companies struggling to prioritize sustainability activities and will create a solid foundation to advance best practices in corporate adaptation.

We know that the potential costs of corporate inaction are great. Missed opportunities to reduce recovery costs, increase resilience and leverage public sector adaptation efforts are not only unfortunate, but could greatly diminish the private sector’s ability respond to climate threats in a way that keeps our economy thriving.

Furthermore, while the public, nonprofit and philanthropic sectors have made great strides on issues associated with adaptation planning and implementation in recent years, the status of resilience building in the private sector is unclear at best. The CDP has successfully motivated some companies to prioritize transparency in sustainability reporting, however, as our climate continues to change, it becomes more and more imperative that we have a collective understanding of current corporate adaptation activities and the barriers that are inhibiting real progress.

Our goal is to further our collective understanding of the challenges corporations face when addressing climate risk as well as to highlight best practices and potential strategies that advance resilience building across sectors and communities.

Please join us to shed light on the current state of corporate adaptation by sharing your knowledge and insights in the first annual State of Corporate Adaptation survey. The survey results will be released in a public report along with practical guidance and ideas for next steps in corporate adaptation at the National Adaptation Forum on May 11, 2015. Click here to participate in this exciting discussion!

Once you’ve completed the survey, please feel welcome to forward to your network and don’t forget to tweet about it too!