Assessing climate risks across different business sectors and industries: an investigation of methodological challenges at national scale for the UK.

Climate change poses severe risks for businesses, which companies as well as governments need to understand in order to take appropriate steps to manage those. This, however, represents a significant challenge as climate change risk assessment is itself a complex, dynamic and geographically diverse process. A wide range of factors including the nature of production processes and value chains, the location of business sites as well as relationships and interdependencies with customers and suppliers play a role in determining if and how companies are impacted by climate risks.

Turning risk assessment and adaptation policy priorities into meaningful interventions and governance processes.

The UK is one of the first countries in the world to have set up a statutory system of national climate risk assessments followed by a national adaptation programme. Having this legal framework has been essential for enabling adaptation at the government level in a challenging political environment. However, using this framework to create an improvement in resilience to climate change across the country requires more than publishing a set of documents; it requires careful thought about what interventions work, how they can be enabled and what level of risk acceptability individuals, organizations and the country should be aiming for.