Regeneration & Resilience

The Future Is Now:
Adaptation, Planning Are Crucial for Business Resilience

Sustainable Brands’ first-ever Resilience Summit underscored the idea that building resilience is not just about reacting to environmental risks — it’s about thriving by building systems, businesses and communities that are prepared for the future.

By Tom Idle | Published 2 weeks ago | About a 9 minute read

Image: Babcock Ranch

SB’24 San Diego came to a close with the inaugural SB Resilience Summit — which reminded assembled business leaders of the imperative to look ahead: Amid ongoing climate volatility, geopolitical instability, threats to markets around the world, supply chain disruptions and social unease, resilience is now a KPI for future-proof business.

Raphael Bemporad

“We must recognize changes we’re experiencing as part of the human story,” said the Summit’s host, Raphael Bemporad — a Founding Partner at BBMG. “We must think about the people we love and consider what will happen to them in the future. That’s what will take us to another place. That’s why this work matters, and why we show up.”

To give context to the stories that were about to be told, Bemporad and Earth Guardians Executive Director Emmy Scott referenced recent research in which 80 percent of Gen Zers say they have directly felt the impact of climate change in their daily life in the past year. 44 percent of under 30s say they don’t want to have children because of the climate crisis. The good news is that 80 percent of people say they would like to experience a healthier and more sustainable way of living, because they feel being healthier and more sustainable improve their quality of life.

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“We are dealing with problems that are not in the future; they are here right now,” Bemporad stressed. “People are overwhelmed. They say they don’t have time, they don’t know what the solutions are, they don’t see the options, they don’t know what to do. They feel ambivalent and anxious.” In presenting the solutions in a way that is accessible and desirable, “brands can become a transformative force in society and in the world.”

Towards a resilient telecoms network and service

Jessica Filante Farrington, from her mainstage presentation earlier in the day

One company leading the charge on climate adaptation is telecoms provider AT&T. The firm’s Director of Global Environmental Sustainability, Jessica Filante Farrington, began the day’s discussions of resilience work in practice by explaining AT&T’s efforts to translate granular climate-risk analyses into updated priorities of action across its various internal functions and operations.

For AT&T, adaptation is about three things, Farrington said: Thinking about the impact of climate-related extreme weather on the business and safeguarding its infrastructure; looking after its people (“extreme heat impacts a lot of our guys who are working outside”); and lifting and supporting the communities it operates within.

“I love the resilience space because it’s analogous to the role I play in my family,” she told delegates. “I’m constantly problem solving and thinking about the future for my children, who are 6 and 9 years old.” She is giving them the tools they will need for tomorrow and building in preparedness that will give them the confidence to overcome challenges — which is what AT&T is doing through its approach to adaption, she says.

Hurricanes Maria and Harvey in 2016 and 2017 were devastating for AT&T — costing hundreds of millions of dollars to restore networks and services — but Farrington acknowledged it was the impetus for change internally: “That was the moment we finally got buy in. Historical data wasn’t going to tell us about what was to come. We needed to understand what was about to change, and we had a chance to distinguish ourselves as a resilient network.”

One of the pivot points to Farrington’s work, she said, was piggybacking on a team of software automation personnel who had already received investment to overhaul their systems.

“We said, ‘While you’re at it, can we add new wireframes on climate-risk scores?’ And we made champions of these guys,” she said. “We put them in front of our chief sustainability officer — their work became the subject of our CSO’s blogs. They could speak the language we needed and advocate for us.”

Understanding real estate’s climate-risk exposure

Shawn Hesse

Supporting many of Farrington’s points, Shawn Hesse then explained why operational and financial risks to corporate real estate are escalating — and what to do about it. The VP for ESG and Sustainability Advisory at JLL took the audience through the reality — and cost — of inaction. Climate-related impacts increase costs and insurance premiums and cause disruption to operations. Meanwhile, energy and water costs are rising; and increased regulation is making it harder for companies to ignore their responsibilities.

“The truth is, there is no such thing as a climate haven,” he said. Even cities such as Asheville, North Carolina — which intuitively would not be high on most people’s lists of locations of high climate risk — have been proven unsafe. “We cannot rely on rules of thumb or historical data to predict the future. And we can’t rely on gut.”

Instead, Hesse advocates for informed climate-risk assessments that consider multiple hazards across multiple time horizons. They also use IPCC scenario planning to give a more accurate picture of what is around the corner and just how exposed a brand’s real estate portfolio might be.

Hesse stressed that scenario planning for climate risk should not only include physical risks, such as the acute impact of a hurricane, or experiencing 100 days of over 100°F temperatures; companies must also consider transitional risk — for example, how policy and regulation might impact operations or how failure to act might impact brand reputation.

“Climate risk is a blind spot for most companies,” he added. “Just one in five companies have a plan in place to adapt to physical risks to their properties. It will cost money to not prepare.”

The role of strategic foresight and backcasting in climate adaptation

John Izzo

After the coffee break, purpose-driven business consultant and executive coach Dr. John Izzo seconded the importance of scenario planning while also highlighting backcasting — a business planning method of envisioning a desirable future and then working backwards to determine how to get there — as a valuable tool for resilience planning. Backcasting isn’t unfamiliar in business circles, but it remains relatively — and surprisingly — under-utilized in the context of understanding and responding to climate risks, he said.

Izzo eloquently highlighted the importance of strategic foresight and systems thinking, and how these concepts can help humanity navigate future challenges — especially in the context of climate change. He echoed Hesse’s point that the future is not only about avoiding risks but also about actively working towards a desired scenario.

One of Izzo’s central ideas is the concept that “systems eventually navigate towards the highest images they have of themselves.” He used the Declaration of Independence as an example: At the time it was written, the US was far from embodying the ideals expressed in the document — with slavery widespread and women without rights. Yet, the vision of equality and liberty set out in the Declaration “has served as a guiding principle that the country has repeatedly strived to live up to over the years.”

Check out more highlights from throughout the week at SB’24 San Diego!

Izzo extended the idea to the concept of foresight: “Foresight is not just about predicting risks or scenario planning but also about asking, ‘What is the most plausible future scenario that we want to have?’ Without a clear, desirable future in mind, it becomes difficult to navigate the path to achieving it.”

He highlighted examples from his foresight work with organizations such as Goldman Sachs, which prepared for Superstorm Sandy in 2012 by using foresight to anticipate a low-probability event — a storm that flooded lower Manhattan — and took steps to mitigate its impact, including stockpiling sandbags and moving their generators to the roof: “It was one of the only buildings that had power during the storm. This is an example of how foresight can turn small, relatively inexpensive actions into substantial advantages when a crisis hits.”

Izzo went on to outline three potential responses to climate change that are currently emerging:

The fixers, who believe we need to focus on reducing carbon emissions and restoring nature;
The adapters, who accept that climate change is inevitable and advocate for resilience and adaptation;
and the 'surrender’ movement, which suggests that — since collapse is unavoidable — the best response is to build loving, community-based resilience in the face of the coming changes.

All three approaches are necessary, he said. “We do have to keep working to fix it, but we’ve got to adapt.”

Climate-adaptation solutions in action

Image credit: Babcock Ranch

To provide more tangibility and send delegates away with more hope than anxiety, the Resilience Summit concluded by showcasing some of the critical features that could dominate forward-looking and resilient communities in the future.

Tyler Kitson, Senior VP of Communities at real estate developer Kitson & Partners, shared the philosophy behind Babcock Ranch — the US’s first solar-powered town, and one of the country’s largest solar-plus-battery systems. In fact, it’s the only US town proven to withstand the impacts of a category 4 hurricane. Surviving Hurricane Ian in 2022 established the community as an international model for resilient design, construction and preparedness. The town’s lakes double up as retaining ponds to protect houses from floods, streets are designed to absorb excess rainfall, and the community hall is reinforced as a storm shelter.

Joining Kitson was the aptly named David Smart, Chief Commercial Officer for BioStar Renewables — a company that provides financing, turnkey engineering, procurement, construction and asset management of renewable energy assets. BioStar works to give its customers maximum control over their energy consumption and costs by scaling solutions such as solar power and waste-to-energy generation through anaerobic digestion. And co-founder and CEO Aaron Tartakovsky highlighted the work of Epic Cleantec — a water-treatment business borne out of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Reinvent the Toilet Challenge. As he explained, the firm has become a leader in onsite water reuse, shifting the water industry toward a distributed, circular approach in which wastewater resources — water, nutrients, energy, carbon — are recovered and reused.

Sustainable Brands’ first-ever Resilience Summit underscored the idea that building resilience is not just about reacting to environmental risks, but also about envisioning and actively working toward a more sustainable and equitable future. Resilience is not just about surviving the challenges ahead — it’s about thriving by building systems, businesses and communities that are prepared for the future.

Tom Idle

Content creator extraordinaire.

Tom is founder of storytelling strategy firm Narrative Matters — which helps organizations develop content that truly engages audiences around issues of global social, environmental and economic importance. He also provides strategic editorial insight and support to help organisations – from large corporates, to NGOs – build content strategies that focus on editorial that is accessible, shareable, intelligent and conversation-driving.

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