BUSINESS & CLIMATE CHANGE

Making Climate resiliency your business

Climate change will impact businesses in many ways. The impacts of climate change, such as increased temperatures, heavy wind and rainfall events, sea level rise, and flooding may result in business interruptions due to road closures, damage to facilities or power outages, reduction of products due to shipping delays, and increased insurance costs due to infrastructure damages (Figure 1). 

Figure 1: Top 5 Current or Expected Impacts of a Changing Climate (Crawford & Seidel, 2013).

Figure 1: Top 5 Current or Expected Impacts of a Changing Climate (Crawford & Seidel, 2013).

This worksheet is not a comprehensive risk and vulnerability assessment.  The aim of this exercise is to draw attention to vulnerabilities that may exist in your infrastructure or business operations, and provide some suggestions with how to manage vulnerabilities.  If you are interested in completing a risk and vulnerability assessment, please contact ACAP Saint John for further resources.

Businesses can manage climate change impacts by:

  1. Understanding climate risks. Read ACAP Saint John’s Report Understanding Climate Change in Saint John. This report outlines how climate change will impact the City of Saint John and includes projections for changes in temperature, precipitation, sea level rise, and extreme weather. 

  2. Assessing vulnerabilities. Complete ACAP’s vulnerability questionnaire to determine if your business is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Assess how these impacts could affect business operations. 

  3. Assessing adaptation options. Identify tasks that could be completed to reduce vulnerability.