A guide to support business advisors discuss climate resilience with SMEs
Business advisors have an important role to play in raising awareness of the need for businesses to increase their resilience to climate change.
This guide provides prompt questions to help business advisors discuss resilience to climate change with businesses.
Scottish businesses are already being disrupted by extreme weather brought about by climate change. Extreme weather is predicted to increase in frequency and intensity over the coming decades.
While businesses may not think they have time to work on climate resilience, there are simple and pragmatic actions that can be taken to increase resilience as part of existing business activities and address current priorities.
The guide is designed as a discussion tool, rather than to provide definitive advice, as every business will be facing different opportunities and challenges. We have provided links to further information alongside each question.
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Understanding the Challenge
Adaptation is our adjustment to climate change, by understanding the challenge we can make informed decisions based on actual or expected change. By developing this capability you will gather evidence on climate risks and vulnerabilities, then integrate these into internal systems and procedures.
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Starting
UC1A LEARN about Scotland’s changing climate and impactsAn understanding of past climate trends and future projections is a necessary foundation for adaptation. Understanding the consequences for Scotland and locally will help you understand the impacts on your organisation. Learn about these by accessing UK Climate Projections and key synthesis reports.- Identify relevant climate projections and reflect on how your organisation could be affected by changes at the local, national and global levels. You may wish to review the following information sources:
UC1B DEVELOP understanding of climate risk and vulnerabilityRisk and vulnerability are key concepts for understanding the potential impacts of climate change on your organisation. To inform robust decision-making, these need to be understood in your specific context. Access relevant sources of evidence and map out your key stakeholders.- Climate Risk can be understood as a function of climate hazard, exposure and vulnerability (Figure: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2019) Figure TS.4). Climate risk experienced by different organisations will vary, depending on their specific circumstances.
- Everyone is affected by climate change but those who are more climate vulnerable are particularly affected.
- Learn about climate vulnerability and its determinants: Who is vulnerable? | Climate Just
- Learn more about the differential impacts of climate change on health and wellbeing: Working together to build climate-resilient, healthy and equitable places: A briefing for local government and partners – Publications – Public Health Scotland
- To help understand your organisation’s specific climate risk, it is important to understand the different needs and vulnerabilities of those you work with – this could include communities in your area, your workforce, service users, visitors, etc. It may be helpful to carry out Stakeholder mapping to help map out your key stakeholders.
- Identify national and sub-national climate-related risks through a desk top study of published risk assessments, tools and data:
Case studies and further reading
- Climate Ready Clyde produced a climate Vulnerability map to help prioritise adaptation action.
- Video: Take steps to understand impacts on communities affected Phil Duthie & Caroline Monro – Angus Storm Experiences – YouTube
UC1C RECORD and CONSIDER the impact of recent weather events on your organisationYour organisation will have been affected by recent weather events. Exploring the consequences of specific events with colleagues is a way to explore climate-related vulnerabilities in more depth. These can be useful narratives for raising awareness, as well as some providing initial evidence of potential costs.- Produce a short report describing the impacts and costs of severe weather events that have affected your organisation, workforce, and the people you serve:
- In discussion with colleagues, identify severe weather events such as storms, floods or heatwaves that have impacted your organisation.
- Carry out a desk-based review of additional sources of information including:
- Insurance Logs
- Repair and maintenance reports
- Staff timesheets (overtime for storm response, cleanup operations etc)
- Emergency / Incident Records
- Procurement records
- Staff absences
- Flood Risk Management Plans
- Press and social media records
- Annual Met Office State of the UK Climate reports
- You may wish to combine this information to create a Local Climate Impact Profile. A local climate impacts profile – how to do an LCLIP – UKCP) (webarchive)
Case studies and further reading
- Falkirk District Local Climate Impact Profile (2020)
- Aberdeenshire Local Climate Impact Profile 2019 – 2022
- PHS’ Adverse Weather and Health Plan Protecting the population from the negative health and wellbeing impacts of adverse weather: Public Health Scotland plan 2024-2027
- Ready Scot: Advice for emergencies in Scotland
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Intermediate
UC2A MAP OUT how your organisation’s functions might be affected by climate change
Your organisation will have many functions that might be affected by climate change. To identify these, you will need to engage with colleagues across your organisation to explore the connection between strategic and operational priorities and climate impacts.- Talk to colleagues across all services or departments to identify how their operations, processes and resources are affected by current weather and climate impacts. Consider which critical functions appear most vulnerable to climate impacts.
- Template 1: Adaptation Action within your organisation lists a range of services/ departments that are commonly found in public sector organisations and gives examples of adaptation links for each. (Downloadable Templates)
- Use Template 7: Linking Priorities and climate impacts – Interview questions to guide your interviews. (Downloadable Templates)
- Hold a Climate Impact Assessment workshop with representatives from different departments/ services to share experience of the ways that climate impacts have affected your organisation.
UC2B CONSIDER scenarios for future climate change impacts
Climate projections provide a range of possible future climates to understand potential impacts. It is also important to consider how changes in socio-demographic conditions could alter our vulnerability and influence our adaptation responses. The use of scenarios and storylines approaches can enable you to explore a range of possibilities under future conditions.- Identify and define a range of scenarios. Consider creating a brief that explains how climate change might alter your organisations’ ability to deliver its key services, focusing on the experience of end users. Highlight a diverse range of future states that may occur – ensure these are plausible, distinctive, relevant and challenging. Scenarios should explore alternatives to business as usual.
- Evaluate organisational impacts. Assess the possible consequences of the range of scenarios to the organisation. Building on this narrative, once you have identified the potential negative outcomes, you can focus on how different that narrative would be if your organisation had planned for climate adaptation, and was resilient to climate change impacts.
Case studies and further reading
- The use of Scenario Analysis in Disclosure of Climate-Related Risks and Opportunities by the Task Force on Climate –Related Financial Disclosures
- The Metadata Catalogue – ScotPHO collates a range of publicly available dashboards and the indicators available within for you to explore and find the information that you need. For example, information relating to changing health and demographics. These factors could be considered alongside future climate scenarios.
UC2C ENGAGE with stakeholders using participatory approachesYou should seek to involve a diverse range of relevant stakeholders in your adaptation planning e.g. communities, service users, customers etc (Identified in Task UC1B). Inclusive engagement can help you better understand and identify new opportunities, synergies with existing activities, and help target key drivers of climate vulnerability.- Learn about principles of participation and engagement:
- Participatory approaches are often very helpful in identifying differential impacts and potential unintended consequences of actions. The approach and extent of engagement will depend on your organisation. Engagement is an ongoing task and will need to be revisited as your organisation’s approach to adaptation matures and plans develop. Below, we provide a range of resources to support external engagement:
AUDIENCE RESOURCE Communities Participatory Mapping of Climate Impacts Place Standard with a Climate Lens
Schools Climate Ready Places lesson plans Businesses SME Resilience Checklist Case studies and further reading
- Adaptation Scotland used participatory mapping tools to gather knowledge from communities in North Uist to create a visualisation of climate hazards and impacts, and to identify sites of local importance.
- Building trust to engage communities in climate adaptation – Ashden
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Advanced
UC3A CARRY OUT climate change risk assessmentA climate change risk assessment is used to evaluate climate risks across your organisation or for key service / asset portfolios. This strategic ‘scan’ helps to understand the changing likelihood and consequence of a range of potential risks for your organisation and stakeholders. It enables you to prioritise climate risks, allowing you to better focus resources.- Carry out a strategic climate change risk assessment. The information you have collected in the previous tasks (such as climate change projections, affected stakeholders and vulnerabilities) will help you complete this assessment. A variety of templates are available to support this process:
- Guide to Strategic Climate Change Risk Assessments (Adaptation Scotland)
- Risk and Opportunities Matrix template for Local Authorities (Local Partnerships)
- Climate Risk Register Guide and Tool (EAUC Scotland – universities and colleges)
- Adapt to Survive: A Tool for Building Resilience to Climate Change into Health Care Systems
- A Changing Climate for Development – Adaptation Scotland
- This can be completed in-house or some organisations choose to use consultants to support this process, if additional technical expertise is required. For guidance on commissioning a climate change risk assessment, see page 21: A Changing Climate for Development – Adaptation Scotland
- Risk Assessment should be repeated periodically (at least every 5 years), requiring regular review and update as new information emerges.
Case studies and further reading
UC3B INTEGRATE climate adaptation knowledge into internal training and procedures
As internal knowledge of climate adaptation grows, it will need to be made accessible to many more people in your organisation in a form that is easily utilised in their work. Look for opportunities to integrate knowledge into internal systems and procedures, so that adaptation is no longer seen as an ‘add-on’ task.- Identify opportunities to include adaptation in staff training and/or inductions to raise adaptation awareness and build capacity.
- Consider formal and informal learning opportunities for colleagues across your organisation. This could include:
- Training
- Staff talks/webinars
- Workshops
- Internal bulletins
Case studies and further reading
UC3C IMPROVE understanding of stakeholder needs
It is important to sustain engagement with stakeholders to better understand climate impacts, risks and vulnerabilities, as well as to secure buy-in for your plans. Develop a stakeholder engagement plan to ensure on-going commitment as your adaptation work progresses.- Reflect on progress with engaging different stakeholder groups to date (UC2C). Identify successes and failures and use learning to shape future engagement.
- Develop a stakeholder engagement plan alongside any update to strategic plans. Ensure effective plans are in place to ensure that vulnerable groups are effectively included in stakeholder engagement processes.
Case studies and further reading
- The Highland Adaptsprogramme is using stakeholder engagement to support local participation and contribution to climate resilience.
- Public Health Wales have undertaken work to better understand the wider health impacts of climate change in Wales, and what it means for people’s lives. This includes economic, social, environmental and mental wellbeing. Climate Change in Wales: Health Impact Assessment Summary Report (2023).
- Scotland Inclusive Communication Hub Home Page – Welcome to the Inclusive Communication Hub
- Webinar: Community Emergency Hubs in New Zealand approach to community development to enhance societal resilience.
- Carry out a strategic climate change risk assessment. The information you have collected in the previous tasks (such as climate change projections, affected stakeholders and vulnerabilities) will help you complete this assessment. A variety of templates are available to support this process:
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Mature
UC4A UNDERTAKE project-level risk assessment
A project-level risk assessment is focussed on climate risks for a specific project, policy, asset, or location. These are typically justified if they have been identified as ‘at-risk’ in a strategic assessment, provide a critical function of your organisation, or are major investments/assets. The narrow scope allows for an appropriately detailed analysis of climate risks.- Decide on the threshold point for carrying out a project-level climate risk assessment. This may for example be implemented for new capital projects over a spend threshold, for new buildings, or projects with high strategic importance.
- Templates for project-level risk assessments are provided below, in the context of new built environment projects:
- Consider the effects of climate change on proposed projects and infrastructure investment
- DEFRA (2024) Accounting for the effects of climate change: Supplementary green book guidance
- Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment (2022) The Physical Climate Risk Assessment Methodology – Guidelines for integrating physical climate risks in Infrastructure Investment Appraisal.
Case studies and further reading
UC4B MAINSTREAM climate change risk assessment
Ensure that your climate change risk assessment is embedded within your wider risk management framework (such as the Corporate Risk Register). Ensure that there is senior ownership of key risks and that these are effectively communicated within your organisation.- Work with your organisation’s Risk Manager or equivalent to define and embed adaptation risk within your risk register. Use your organisation’s risk registers (at corporate or service level) as a way to heighten awareness, consideration and action on climate adaptation.
- Put reporting processes in place to regularly review and feedback on climate risk assessments and management responses to ensure that climate risk assessments are visible within your organisation and used to inform and influence decision making.
Case studies and further reading
- Climate change risk has been embedded into North Ayrshire Council’s Strategic Risk Register. This inclusion of climate risk ensures visibility of climate risk and adaptation work at a strategic level in the organisation. North Ayrshire Council Strategic Risk Register 2023/24 (cmis.uk.com)
UC4C IDENTIFY knowledge gaps, seek expertise and foster links with research and innovation
To meet the challenge of adaptation, your organisation will need to continually learn and adjust. As work on adaptation advances, you should seek to identify knowledge gaps that are important to your decision making. Research and innovation can be harnessed to co-produce adaptation solutions, alongside local or international partners.- Share knowledge gaps and research needs with partner organisations to help identify any relevant existing research or shared research priorities. (See guidance in Working Together capability for more information on identifying partner organisations.)
- If knowledge gaps exist (e.g understanding local population health and impacts of climate on health), you may need to develop a project specification setting out the research question and the outputs required.
- You may need to commission external technical experts who can help you fill the knowledge gaps that you have identified.
- Identify whether there are any partners (including academia) who may be interested in collaborating with your organisation to develop research projects, potentially enabling your organisation to benefit from research funding.
- Identify consultancy services that may be able to provide relevant knowledge and expertise on a paid for basis.
Case studies and further reading
- Review current and ongoing research led by ClimateXChange, Scotland’s centre of expertise connecting climate change research and policy.
- UK Research and Innovation website includes a “find funding” facility for research proposals.
Workshop Outline and Template
Working together for systems change
A tool to help you understand who is important to involve in planning and delivering local climate resilience and adaptation actions. Places, communities, and organisations cannot adapt in isolation; it requires the involvement of different individuals and institutions, bringing them on board and influencing decision making. Building climate resilience is a process that needs collaboration at different scales, so it is useful to map out who needs to be involved. This can help:
- Identify potential stakeholders (groups, networks, projects, underrepresented groups) to involve
- ‘Power map’ stakeholders (identify their levels of knowledge/influence) and the links between them.
- Prioritise those groups or networks that could potentially have the greatest reach, or that are particularly important to involve
The tool is for anyone who is beginning to work on climate change adaptation in their place and wants to understand who they should involve. This tool will also be helpful for groups that have been engaged in local climate action and want to re-evaluate who they are engaging with.
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A checklist and case studies for building resilience to extreme weather and climate change
The Adaptation Scotland programme is excited to share a new resource to help businesses in Scotland prepare for extreme weather and increase their business resilience.
The SME Resilience Checklist provides practical checklists for simple actions that businesses can take to protect their People, Products and Services, Premises, Processes and Place. It also includes prompts to encourage businesses to identify opportunities for innovations or new offerings in response to their climate risks and new customer needs.
The SME Resilience Checklist is accompanied by case studies of businesses in Scotland taking action to prepare for how climate change my affect their business, improving their business’ resilience to shocks, and identifying new growth opportunities.
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Webinars and resources introducting the Climate Hazards and Resilience in the Workplace tools and guidance
All workers whether they work indoors, outdoors, offshore, or travel for a living could be increasingly vulnerable to disruption, damage, and potential injury from climate change impacts such as windstorms, flooding, and heatwaves.
The Adaptation Scotland programme and the Scottish Trade Union movement (Unison and STUC) worked together to create resources to help identify the hazards that climate change could bring to a range of different workplaces and to develop adaptation solutions.
The resources are designed to be used by any organisation, not just by trade union representatives. The resources address the human consequences of a changing climate and help workers have a central voice in building resilience to climate risks and championing climate change adaptation solutions which also tackle inequality and social justice as part of a Just Transition in Scotland.
These tools combine the latest climate change science and the lived experience of trade union representatives from across Scotland, which suggests that climate change impacts, without adaptation, threaten health and safety. Conversely, well planned adaptation action can transform our poorest communities and present opportunities for Scotland’s workers and industries.
The resource include:
- A handbook which makes the case for adaptation from a Trade Union (and broader just transition) perspective including examples of how climate impacts are already impacting schools, offices, shops, depots, warehousing, care homes, hospitals, and outdoor workplace settings.
- A workbook which takes users on a step-by-step journey in identifying potential climate change hazards in their workplace and provides information to help union officers and reps in Scotland take action to build resilience and protect workers from the unavoidable impacts of climate change.
- Checklists that can be downloaded and used by individuals and organisations to identify potential climate-related hazards and possible adaptation responses.
- Webinars introducing the tools and guidance, and explaining the process behind their development.
Downloads:
DOWNLOAD HANDBOOK DOWNLOAD WORKBOOK DOWNLOAD CHECKLISTSWebinars
Introducing the tools and guidance
Making the case for climate adaptation and risk screening
Webinar exploring workplace climate hazards and adaptation responses and developing the resources
Webinars introducting the Adaptation Capability Framework and Benchmarking Tool
The Adaptation Scotland programme’s Adaptation Capability Framework and associated Benchmarking Tool are used by public sector organisations in Scotland to develop their understanding and skills on climate risk and adaptation. These webinars provide an introduction to the two tools, and examples of how organisations in Scotland are using them to support collaborative and effective action on climate change adaptation.
Introducing the Adaptation Capability Framework
Introducing the Benchmarking Tool
Webinar describing and providing case study examples relating to the Working Together capability of the Adaptation Capability Framework.
No organisation can adapt alone, by working together we can do more to achieve shared adaptation outcomes. That is why Working Together is one of the four capabilities comprising the Adaptation Capability Framework, the Adaptation Scotland programme’s guidance to support public bodies to adapt to climate change. By developing this capability you will forge connections with key partners to share ideas and find opportunities to collaborate.
During this webinar Elizabeth Vander Meer from the University of Edinburgh and Tara Murray from Aberdeenshire Council are giving their first hand accounts of how they are approaching the ‘Working together’ capability from our Adaptation Capability Framework to make their respective organisations more resilient to a changing climate..
Webinar describing and providing case study examples relating to the Working Together capability of the Adaptation Capability Framework.
Webinar describing and providing case study examples relating to the Planning and Implementation capability of the Adaptation Capability Framework.
Adaptation is a long-term challenge that requires strategic planning and implementation to achieve outcomes. That is why Planning and Implementation is one of the four capabilities comprising the Adaptation Capability Framework, the Adaptation Scotland programme’s guidance to support public bodies to adapt to climate change. By developing this capability you will set appraised options into an adaptation strategy and action plan, adopting an approach that maintains flexibility and seeks pathways for an adaptation transition.
During this webinar Mairi Davies from Historic Environment Scotland and Victoria Barby from the Scottish Parliament gave us their first hand accounts of how they are approaching the ‘Planning and Implementation’ capability from our Adaptation Capability Framework to make their respective organisations more resilient to a changing climate.
Webinar describing and providing case study examples relating to the Planning and Implementation capability of the Adaptation Capability Framework.
Webinar on the Organisational Culture and Resources capability of the Adaptation Capability Framework
To make progress with adaptation, it will need to fit with your organisational culture and resources. Organisational Culture and Resources is one of the four capabilities comprising the Adaptation Capability Framework, the Adaptation Scotland programme’s guidance to support public bodies to adapt to climate change. By developing this capability, you will find ways to align adaptation activities with your organisation’s priorities. Over time they will become mainstreamed into plans, policies and procedures – part of business as usual for your organisation.
During this webinar Dr. Roddy Yarr from Strathclyde University, and Alan Gale together with Isla McCaskie from Forestry and Land Scotland, share their experiences and insights on making progress with adaptation and finding the right fit for it in their organisational culture and resources.
Webinar on the Organisational Culture and Resources capability of the Adaptation Capability Framework
This briefing discusses what can be done to build climate resilience at a local level in a way that also benefits health.
Working together for change
The Adaptation Scotland programme worked with Public Health Scotland (PHS) and the Improvement Service to develop this introductory briefing on working together to build climate-resilient, healthy and equitable places.
This resource is for local government and partners such as Health Boards, Community Planning Partnerships, and local organisations. It sets out how our changing climate can affect health and health inequalities both directly, and indirectly through impacts on housing, transport, and access to goods and services, which are the building blocks of good health.
People who are socially and economically disadvantaged often experience significantly poorer health and are more vulnerable to climate impacts. These inequalities are underpinned by poverty, lack of power and the unequal distribution of resources and assets in the community.
The briefing discusses what can be done to take a preventative approach to building climate resilience at a local level in a way that also benefits health. It starts with understanding how the challenges are interconnected, adopting a whole system approach and working together to identify actions that address the underlying causes. The resource includes a range of tools and case studies to support this.
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