The Business of Adaptation
 | Climate change is a business issue and businesses are responding with the things they do best: driving out inefficiency, innovating new technologies, products and services and pioneering new markets. But the truth is they are only concentrating on half the problem. Few businesses have begun to consider the challenge of adaptation - what it will take to grow their business in a world which faces a temperature rise of 2ºC, 3ºC, 4ºC, 5ºC degrees or more, and where the people are facing the worst of these impacts are already poorly served by markets.  Download The Business of Adaptation, Briefing Paper.
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Some businesses are already facing climate change impacts in the form of shrinking and disputed water supplies, unreliable power supplies and exposure to drought and extreme weather events, others are recognising the opportunity to serve their customers better by helping them to adapt. For example:
- In India, Unilever reformulated laundry detergent to require less rinsing, estimating that this could save 14 billion litres of water in the region a year.
- Husk Power Systems and Ankur Scientific Energy Technologies in India provide small scale energy generation systems, which run on local biomass such as rice husks, freeing people from dependence on liquid fuels or grid electricity, which exhibit volatile prices and canbe cut off by extreme weather events.
- Jain Irrigation together with Yes Bank provides financing for drip irrigation.
- Agriculture and food multiantionals such as Unilever, Syngenta, DuPont, Monsato, Nestle, Groupe Danone, McDonald's and Starbucks have developed sustainable agriculture strategies along with their value chains, including efforts to support farmers to adapt to climate change.
- Micro-insurance products are being developed by global insurance and reinsurance companies such as Swiss Re and Munich Re together with microfinance institutions, rural banks and cooperatives, and emerging market companies and in joint ventures those by ICICI Lombard, BASIX and TATA-AIG in India.
While these are just a few early examples of pioneering action, it is clear that all kinds of businesses will need to adapt as climate change affects their operations, their customers and their supply chains.
Over the coming decade economies will have to be transformed towards low-carbon, climate resilient development pathways. To achieve this it is crucial that adaptation starts to receive as much business attention as mitigation. The success of national adaptation strategies will depend on whether they enable businesses to adapt, to provide products and services that help others to adapt, and to avoid investment strategies that store up problems of maladaptation.
Our Work
AccountAbility is focusing on how the role of business in adaptation can be supported by a global climate deal, by national policies and by a business call to action.
We are working with the UK Department for International Development, the Government of South Africa, the International Institute for Environment and Development, the World Economic Forum, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Nairobi Work Programme and other Partners.
Publications
We have contributed to a number of recent publications in this area:
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For further information, contact Maya Forstater, Associate Partner
The Business of Adaptation by
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