Climate adaptation offers competitive advantage – Study

Climate adaptation offers competitive advantages to businesses worldwide. This was contained in a report on Adapting for a Green Economy: Companies, Communities and Climate Change, jointly released last week by the UN Global Compact, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Oxfam and the World Resources Institute. In response to a survey of global businesses, 86 percent described responding to climate risks or investing in adaptation as a business opportunity.

“Business can only thrive in stable and enabling environments,” said Georg Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact. “Climate adaptation offers a pathway to help communities that are already feeling the devastating impacts of climate change. At the same time, it creates a wealth of new opportunities for the private sector.”

Drawing on the results of a 2010 survey among companies engaged in Caring for Climate, the joint climate action platform of the UN Global Compact and UNEP, the study makes the business case for private sector adaptation to climate change in ways that build the resilience of vulnerable communities in developing countries.

Already, businesses worldwide are beginning to see the risks and economic impacts of more frequent and intense storms, water scarcity, declining agricultural productivity and poor health.   Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: “We live in a world where extreme weather events on one day can move food and fuel prices the next, impacting vulnerable and poor communities and a company’s supply chain.