6 Companies Helping Businesses Adapt To Climate Change

Climate change is a reality that every earth inhabitant has to grapple with, including entrepreneurs. Extreme natural events like wildfires, catastrophic hurricanes, violent winter storms, drought, and floods pose long-term impacts on business operations. With disruptions in the supply chain and disorientation in the workforce, businesses face challenging times and may be forced to increase their product prices.

However, even price increases may not completely solve the problems, given they have to consider competitors’ prices, which may not necessarily be affected by climate change similarly. Such a dilemma requires external help. For that reason, several companies have been established globally to help businesses adapt to climate change. This article outlines six such companies plus details of what they do:

1. AEM

The primary objective of AEM is to empower businesses to survive and thrive amidst climate change. They achieve this through the following solutions:

• Multi Weather Sensors: They help track weather data to alert businesses of a potential extreme phenomenon on the horizon, enabling them to prepare beforehand.
• Sferic Maps: They’re best at weather visualization, thus alerting the user to weather changes.
• Earth Lightning Networks: With this equipment, you can accurately detect lighting and quickly take action in case there’s a threat.
• Automated Alerts and Sirens: Installing such equipment helps get your staff out of harm’s way during extreme weather events. An example is the barrier gates that close flooded roadways with flashing crossing arms.
• Dam Safety: If your business is located on the downstream end of a dam, AEM offers reliable data and warning systems to help mitigate damage in the worst-case scenario.
• Wildfire risk management: AEM provides the tools needed to detect impending wildfires, from software to sensors, enabling you to flee before significant damage to your property.

2. Arcadis

Arcadis partners with humanitarian associations, such as the United Nations (UN), to improve resilience to climate change and other pressing challenges. One of their outstanding contributions is the Arcadis Shelter Program.

In most cities, there’s overpopulation and overcrowding, leading to congestion and the sprouting of informal settlements. The company helps improve living conditions for these vulnerable people. Remember, some of your team members may reside in such neighbourhoods, and the derelict conditions may adversely affect their overall wellness.

For this reason, Arcadis holds missions to brainstorm how to address such challenges. They also conduct case studies on climate adaptation and mitigation in select developing countries and suggest implementing similar solutions in other affected regions. Finally, they hold sessions to discuss city mobility issues and how to make urban transportation more sustainable.

Arcadis also invests a lot of resources in disaster recovery. Their strategy involves adapting measures that enhance the capacity to build more substantial infrastructure. Through innovative engineering solutions, the structures can withstand some climatic calamities.

3. Dutch State Mines (DSM)

Several governments are enforcing regulations to lower carbon emissions as climate change intensifies. Non-compliance may lead to a revocation of your license. Dutch State Mines (DSM) comes in handy in this case to achieve net zero targets.

For one, they help companies transition from fossil fuels to wind energy. They not only adopt existing wind power generation solutions, but they also test existing solutions and tweak their engineering characteristics to the limits for improved output at an affordable cost.

For instance, they use synthetic lifting and lashing equipment to reduce the costs of setting up and operating wind farms. Cheap electricity from a wind park has less carbon footprint than hydroelectric or nuclear power.

4. Danone

Danone is a leading world food company that aims at building a healthier future through food. The company believes that people’s health is interconnected to the planet’s health. As such, it drives its campaign on four principles:

• Combating climate change
• Protecting water sources
• Promoting agriculture
• Developing reusable packaging

By sticking to the four principles, Danone supports businesses in creating reusable packages for their products. It’ll help stop polluting water sources. Through their innovative strategies, they aim to produce reusable plastics from biodegradable materials that don’t result in pollution.

Additionally, the company supports small-scale dairy farmers to reduce methane emissions. As you may be aware, cows contribute up to 4% of the total carbon emissions. It can be reduced by adding innovative ingredients to their diet, as long as it doesn’t harm their health and milk production.

5. Dilmah Ceylon Tea Company

Dilmah’s company’s motto is “business as a matter of human service.” They aim to carry out their business operations in a manner that safeguards human and environmental health and safety.

First and foremost, Dilmah Tea facilitates a nationwide dialogue on what climate change entails and how entrepreneurs, especially small-scale farmers, should prepare and build resilience to extreme weather events. They have a fully operational climate change research centre, the first of its kind in the private sector.

The company believes it’s its responsibility to understand the effects of global warming and respond accordingly instead of merely ignoring reality. On the same note, they became carbon neutral as early as 2017 through tactics like using solar energy instead of fossil fuels to run their equipment and adding biochar to the soil to offset greenhouse emissions.

The company has also helped improve the living standards of the people affected by the 2004 tsunami that ravaged Sri Lanka. The farmers can now plant cashew nuts in the region following carbon-neutral standards.

6. Swiss Re

Swiss Re is among the top leading insurance companies that facilitate businesses affected by the overall results of climate change. Natural calamities resulting from climate change, such as cyclones and floods, pose significant dangers to businesses. You can lose millions of dollars through property damage if you’re a victim. It’d help if you had insurance to help restore you to normal operations after such catastrophic events. And that’s Swiss Re’s primary focus.

The company offers insurance on low carbon emitting investments to help lift the burden off entrepreneurs’ shoulders in the face of losses. The insurance rates are fair in disaster-prone areas. Additionally, the company supports recovery efforts by providing risk transfer solutions that help cover energy transition costs.

Conclusion

You can’t ignore climate change and its effects. It’s a global phenomenon, and every business is affected. The companies listed above and more help businesses adapt to climate change through innovative solutions. Consider partnering with them to future-proof your entrepreneurial venture. Other than that, you should also participate in protecting the planet. Put in place measures to reduce your company’s carbon footprint. And don’t forget to look after your workers’ and customers’ health. Such efforts go a long way to differentiating your business while making the earth a better place to live in.