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 » Posted by Jen
Forward-thinking businesses must not only consider how to reduce their environmental impact, but also how to adapt and build resilience to the expected impacts of climate change as part of their wider business model.
The former is known as mitigation and the latter as adaptation. And clarification on this is very often sought. So, what is the difference between adaptation and mitigation?
Simply, 'mitigation', refers to actions that reduce our contribution to the causes of climate change.
These actions tend to look at how we can reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses, such as CO2, but also reducing the use of other resources, such as water, waste, and transport costs.
As well as improving competitiveness and meeting legal requirements, it makes good business sense to reduce use of resources as it could help free up cash for the development and growth of your business.
On the other hand, 'adaptation' refers to activities that identify and address the impacts, and also opportunities, resulting from the changing climate.
So, from a business perspective, it's about building resilience by putting in place plans that will minimise interruption as much as possible in the event, for example, of a flood or heavy snowfall.
This is critical to business survival; especially when considering that seven out of 10 small firms would go out of business if they experienced a major emergency in their first year; 80 per cent of small businesses affected by major incidents close within 18 months (figures from AXA Insurance).
And this is a very real issue for North East business - over 60 per cent have told us that events like flooding, heavy snow and low temperatures have adversely affected them over the past two years.
Both mitigation and adaptation are equally urgent; and if we don't take adequate and timely action both will become increasingly challenging and expensive.
In fact, a report that we commissioned last year estimated that failing to adapt effectively to the physical impacts of climate change could cost our economy a minimum of £600 million (1.5 per cent GVA) per annum by 2050. Costs of adaptation are estimated at £80 to £100 million per year by then - a benefit to cost ratio of seven to one.
You can get more information on how you can build resilience you business' resilience and reduce costs at the ClimateNE Business Hub.
And if you have a specific question don't hesitate to drop me a line at jennifer.atkinson@northeastcouncils.gov.uk
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »