James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » • Young people in Brazil use mobile phones and digital technology to help map areas of risk, which in turn, feed into community-level emergency response strategies, such as dealing with the effects of flooding and landslides.
• The creation of cyclone-proof schools in Madagascar with water supplies that provide access to clean, safe drinking water in times of extreme weather events.
These two examples are just some of the ways that businesses are working with UNICEF on the 'Climate Positive for Children' project, whereby companies are helping their future employees, customers and stakeholders become more resilient to a changing climate, particularly in parts of the world being hardest hit by climate change.
More locally, did you know that in the North East of England, schools and young people have been leading on collaborative, community-wide climate change adaptation projects since 2009?
Activities to-date have included:
• Composition and performance of 'Flood Song' by nursery children Eco-Club with support from a local songwriter and music producer, performed to wide audiences across North East England;
• Production of multi-lingual leaflets given out amongst the high street explaining how to prepare for flooding, heat-waves and other impacts of climate change;
• School-based 'climate change adaptation information centres' and outdoor community classrooms to build stronger and more collaborative responses, including support of vulnerable community groups;
• Sub-regional collaborations to address flooding events, surface water issues and biodiversity impacts.
This award-winning work, initiated by the Climate Change Schools Project in partnership with ClimateNE and the Environment Agency, has developed further in 2011 by focussing on priority flood risk areas in the North East, helping schools and young people to facilitate tailored solutions to increase flood preparedness across local communities. Schools and young people are looking at ways to address and raise awareness about coastal, river and surface water flooding across a variety of geographically and culturally diverse communities.
We are looking for local businesses to engage as key stakeholders in these projects - can you help?
To find out more, visit www.climatechangeschools.org.uk and keep an eye out for future blog posts and press releases about our adaptation work.
If you would like to get involved in adaptation and flooding projects in your local community, please email Dr. Krista McKinzey, Climate Change Schools Project Manager, at krista.mckinzey@durham.ac.uk or contact Harriet Thew, Climate Change Schools Project Officer, who leads on our adaptation activity on 0191 370 6203 or at harriet.thew@durham.ac.uk
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