Managing climate risk

Climate change and severe weather events are taking a growing toll on business operations. Everything is at risk - from buildings and assets to supply chains, infrastructure and employees. Understanding the scale and nature of the risk is critical. To achieve this goal, businesses must be able to:

• Model and predict the potential impacts of climate change and weather events across the organization.
• Locate, predict, prepare for and monitor the impact of extreme conditions such as storms, wildfires, flooding, and air pollution
• Make the right decisions at the right times to protect the organization and its stakeholders from the impacts of climate change and severe weather
• Understand the organization’s own contribution to climate change and take effective steps to minimize or even reverse it

These points are easy to list, but hard to act on. Why? Because truly understanding your climate risk means collecting and analyzing some of the largest datasets imaginable.

Think of all of the geospatial data that comes from satellite monitoring of the Earth. Add in global weather forecast data. Then consider all of the data your organization generates about your assets, facilities and infrastructure. Now add carbon emissions data from across your organization and supply chain. The result? Enormous, continually updated datasets that are too big to move.

Luckily, most organizations aren’t starting this journey. In 2019, 96% of executives we surveyed told us they already incorporate weather data into their operational planning. But using that data to model, predict, and act on climate risk requires new tools, technologies, and expertise.⁴

At IBM we’ve developed IBM® Environmental Intelligence Suite, a powerful, comprehensive solution to help organizations understand and mitigate climate-related business risks including extreme weather, climate action failure and human-led environmental damage. IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite is cloud-based, AI-powered software that bridges the gap between climate science and business operations. It combines a powerful geospatial analytics engine with a climate and environmental impact modeling framework so you can:

• Predict the risk of climate change and upcoming weather events to your business operations. In retail, for example, that could mean using future flood risk predictions to inform store location planning.
• Understand the overall impact of weather and climate change on the business. For an electrical utility, knowing the rates at which vegetation is likely to grow along the grid network can help with vegetation management planning.
• Protect your assets and ensure business continuity before, during and after a severe weather event. For instance,proactively identifying and prioritizing the right actions to take in the event of severe weather disruptions to give you time to organize alternative logistics routes.
• Mitigate risks by taking the right actions at the right time to minimize economic and environmental damage from severe weather events. An insurer, for example,could send an SMS alert advising policyholders to move their vehicle ahead of a predicted hailstorm.
• Manage your carbon footprint by understanding your organization’s Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 carbon emissions. By doing so, you can model your energy supply to help navigate and accelerate you transition to renewable energy.
• Improve real-time decision making to reduce costs, improve efficiency and contribute to sustainability goals.

Energy and utilities companies are among the most exposed to climate risk—and they play a key role in the transition to renewable energy. IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite includes optional add-ons for these critical sectors, allowing you to: