Building Business Resilience to Climate Change: Review of Disclosures, Challenges, and Opportunities

Economic damages from weather-related disasters climbed to near-record levels in 2012, with over 800 major events worldwide causing an estimated $130 billion in losses. The rise in costly extreme weather events highlights the growing risks to business from extreme weather.

By analyzing survey responses from the Carbon Disclosure Project, financial disclosures, and corporate sustainability reports we have characterized the ways in which large multinational companies perceive risks from extreme weather, and their attitudes regarding the impacts of climate change. Combined with several more in-depth case studies, we document how companies are assessing and managing the risks of extreme weather and other climate change impacts. The results of the analysis (which appears in the report Weathering the Storm: Building business Resilience to Climate Change) provide a detailed snapshot of the state of resilience planning among a cross-section of global companies, highlighting the informational and policy challenges that they face, as well the market opportunities that they are pursuing.