That video of a couple singing karaoke at a gas station, Jay Leno’s all-time greatest YouTube success, is totally fake.

Duped again!

Great read on corporations adapting to climate change by World Resources Institute. You’d be surprised by how many corporations are adapting - even big oil is adapting to climate change. Blame the media’s obsession with showing “the other side” of the debate. When 97% of climate scientists agree on something (a first) there is no other side to debate.

Now, businesses are finding they’ll also need to “adapt” to more volatile conditions and help vulnerable communities become more resilient. Adaptation means recognizing and preparing for impacts like water stress, coastal flooding, community health issues, or supply chain disruptions, among other issues.

WRI discussed why businesses need to embrace mitigation AND adaptation strategies at the recent Net Impact conference, where I sat on a panel entitled: “Climate Change Adaptation: Mitigating Risk and Building Resilience.” Dr. David Evans, Director of the Center for Sustainability at Noblis, moderated the panel. Other panelists included Gabriela Burian, Director for Sustainable Agriculture Ecosystems at Monsanto, and John Schulz, Director of Sustainability Operations at AT&T.

Why Adaptation Is So Important

Each panelist pointed to reasons why adapting to climate change is becoming increasingly important to their own companies. For example:

• At AT&T, potential disruptions to IT networks pose real threats to the company and its customers. Drawing lessons from disasters like Hurricane Katrina, AT&T has started locating critical equipment on the 2nd floor of a building—rather than the ground floor—to avoid future floods.

• At Monsanto, the focus is on meeting the future food needs of a growing global population. Global warming means new challenges for farmers, who must adjust to changing growing seasons and water availability.

Critical Issues for Corporate Climate Leaders

AT&T and Monsanto shared stories about their own experiences with climate change adaptation, but it’s important to note that this issue will increasingly impact all companies—from small, mom-and-pop shops to global corporations. Companies like Coca-Cola are publicly acknowledging climate risks as part of their financial reporting. More leadership is needed, as businesses start to look at their own climate risks as well as impacts on their customers and local communities.

In the course of the Q&A, the Net Impact session highlighted five important topics that corporate leaders will need to keep in mind:

1. Managing diverse climate change impacts across global operations: Companies that operate in multiple regions may face very different climate change impacts (for example, sea level rise, increasing temperatures, drought, or floods) in different locations. Corporate strategies must be developed locally and in partnership with departments across the organization’s various locations.

2. Finding and creating better decision-making tools: Companies will need information to help them factor potential climate risks into future investments and strategies. Experts in the audience and on the panel pointed to WRI tools like the Aqueduct global water risk maps and the forthcoming Sustainability SWOT (sSWOT) as examples of the type of resources needed to guide forward-looking, smart business decisions.

3. Recognizing underlying drivers of vulnerability: A changing climate is just one of several variables that contribute to business and community vulnerability. For example, population growth and mass consumption are two of the underlying drivers that came up in discussion as places to focus when seeking to increase community resiliency.

4. Taking a broad view of risks and opportunities by engaging stakeholders: A narrow view of climate impacts may unintentionally increase a company’s (or its customers’ or surrounding communities’) vulnerability to climate change. Looking just at the company’s own facilities along the coastline, for example, ignores risks in the supply chain. Similarly, the potential health impacts of climate change—like an increasing threat of water-borne disease—might not seem immediately relevant to some businesses, but it may impact employees or communities in future growth markets. Proactive stakeholder engagement is essential for identifying such risks, which for some companies, may also be opportunities to provide new solutions.

5. Reaching out to new partners: Effective strategies for adapting to climate change may in some cases be a source of competitive advantage (for example, in developing a new product or service). However, in other cases, adaptation measures can be pre-competitive, meaning that even bitter rivals (think Coca-Cola and Pepsi) could collaborate to create better information tools or share water resource management techniques.

Corporations Must Act Quickly

The list above is a partial one. Corporate action to adapt to climate change will certainly involve many more ideas and strategies—many of which are still being developed. More action is needed, and the important take-away from the discussion at the Net Impact conference is that action must start now.

I’m just back from Chicago where I helped run a workshop on adaptation. One of our speakers was Karen Weigert, the Chief Sustainability Officer of the City of Chicago. She spoke mostly about the benefits of greening the city.

After her talk, I asked her about all the sponsors of Millennium Park. Specifically, how does the City square the concept of sustainability with a park that is sponsored by large companies like AT&T, Boeing, BP, and McDonald’s? After all, they could leave at anytime or at the end of their contract. She responded that the value of land and condos in surrounding neighborhoods were rising. She was nice, and the exchange was cordial, but with all due respect I still don’t understand how the park can be exemplified as “sustainable.”

In any case, I’m glad to see Utne taking up this issue of cities depending on sponsors. What happens in 10 years when the sponsor leaves?

Cash-strapped state parks are forging partnerships with corporations to close their budget gaps:

In New York, for example, Nestle’s Juicy Juice contributed $350,000 to build playgrounds in seven state parks. In California, Coca-Cola and Stater Bros. Markets have raised about $1.9 million to support reforestation and other state park preservation efforts. And in Georgia, Verizon Wireless contributed $5,000 to cover the cost of park passes for the state’s annual Free Day at the park. Most of these efforts come with recognition—on a playground sign, on a park pass—of the corporation’s contribution.

The trend has already spawned the creation of a new breed of middleman: A California firm called Government Solutions Group has brokered about $7.5 million in such deal since 2004. Chief executive Shari Boyer tells Governing that this is not philanthropy but business: “These are partnerships. The corporation has to get something out of it.”

Keep reading …

Adjusting and adapting to an inevitably warmer world, more far-sighted private companies are moving forward even in the absence of strong government leadership globally and nationally. Understanding, anticipating and managing their risks are becoming those companies’ new, and challenging, reality. 

Source: Yale Climate Media Forum