 Rwy'n gweithio i'r amser o'r llai fod yn yr un cymdeithasol, oedd yn edrych yn gallu'n gweithio yng nghymru. Rwy'n gweithio i'r amser o'r adeithio. Felly, rydyn ni'n ffrifoedd y gwneud yn y gwefan. Mae'r adeithio i'r adeithio. Rhaid i'n Roslyn Scofield. Rydyn ni'n cymdeithasol yma yma yma, a mae'n adeithio'r adeithio ar gyfer y Comitee Cymru. I am the representative of business so I'm looking through climate change with a business lens. I am headed up sustainability and reporting of it at some company associated British foods which is consumer products and retail for 20 years and I'm also now got a position in the education sector and so I want to welcome everybody to this, the fifth webinar in the climate change committee's UK climate risk state of the nation series and this aims to unpack and explain to you some of the key risks that we identified in the technical report and the advice reports of the UK independent assessment of UK climate risk. Throughout the series we've put out some key sectors exposed to priority risks, important players in responding to climate risk and some of the key challenges raised in the assessment. What we're going to cover in this session though, firstly we're going to have a presentation summary of chapter six which was business and industry from the technical report by Svenja Suminski of LSE, grants and research institute and a technical report lead author. We then have a presentation on the advice report from the assessment produced by the climate change committee by the secretariat's David Stiles who has responsibility for the business piece. Then the panel has got representatives from three experts on the role of business. The first is Doug Johnston of EY where he is a climate change and sustainability services partner and he's worked with organisations across oil, gas, infrastructure, financial services and consumer products. Next we'll go to Cynya Norberg who's head of public affairs and communications at the Aldersgate group. Aldersgate is a politically impartial multi stakeholder alliance championing a competitive and environmentally sustainable economy and its membership comprises some of the largest businesses in the UK and finally the last member of our panel is Anna Bezzic who's a pioneer establishing climate change resilience work in Scotland. She works with an organisation called Sniffer which facilitates multi stakeholder engagement in the area of climate change resilience and after that we should have plenty of time for Q&A too so if you're joining through the Zoom webinar please put your questions in the Q&A box and update the questions as you wish. But first let's start by going to Cynya to talk us through the technical report. So over to you Cynya, thank you. Yeah thank you very much Rosalyn and good morning everybody it's a real pleasure to be here. This is actually my third climate change risk assessment where there have only been three so I've been involved the first one as a stakeholder when I was working in the insurance industry and the previous two ones as lead author of the business chapter so you know it's a massive undertaking and before I share with you some of the insights just also a big thank you well to the committee to Rosalyn, David and basically all the other panellists as you can see many of them have contributed to this exercise and also many businesses have actually provided insights and shared their knowledge and I hope sessions like today will actually you know not just increase awareness about you know this this exercise and the findings but then also make this going forward a much more sort of joint up exercise where we actually can learn much more from businesses and also hear sort of stories about where adaptation is already happening and how the changing risks are being managed and addressed. So yeah let's move to the next slide please. So the technical report sort of is basically a massive stocktake exercise where you know we review existing knowledge existing evidence through various means of engagement literature reviews surveys and so on and we have a clear exam question which you can read here I won't read it out here and importantly while it's called the risk assessment but we're also looking at risk and opportunities and I think that's worth mentioning and I'll come back to that at the end so the idea is what is the current future level of risk and opportunities but then also you know what are we doing about it is there an indication that these risks are being managed either through government action or non-government action and then what would be benefits to further action in the next five years and that's something that I think you know makes this also quite important I mean we always talk about climate change as a risk but let's not forget it's also a reality and you know we sometimes you know this is being presented as a very sort of yeah well we're just assessing the risk but I mean there's a lot happening also in terms of managing impacts and experiencing impact so I think that's important to keep in mind. Next slide please. So yeah there was a range of activities that underpinned this and we also I think with every CCRA cycle you know not just does the evidence base grow but we also get better in picking up certain themes and certain aspects that are really important and that's listed down there at what was new so you know we're looking at certain threshold effects so what happens if you pass certain climatic thresholds and you know how do the systems cope what happens then. Lock-ins is something I'll come back to to us to that point later and inequality is also a really important point you know either through the impacts but also through management action or responses impacts on on equity is an important aspect. Interacting risk I mean we kind of all know that we live in a very interconnected world but what does it mean and how do we actually track these interdependencies. The net zero context really important is an interplay between what we're doing to manage impacts but at the same time also reducing emissions and then this this focus also not just on the UK as a whole but trying to get actually as granular and as local as possible at the very least also have a sort of focus on the four countries and yeah we'll have some representatives well a good colleague from Scotland who also reflect on that next slide please. So this is how the technical report looks like and I would urge you to to have a look at the website the committee put together a really exciting website with lots of tools and information and so to take a look at that I'm sure we can share the link through the the chat at some point. Next slide please. So I guess you know as a starting point you know when we look at at climate risk assessment it's important to underpin that I think that the perspective has changed and we understand climate risk not just as the physical risk but also you know the transition risk what does it mean to change towards a low carbon economy and then there are also liability risks and that's often sort of the the perspective that the companies are using through TCFD reporting or disclosure and that sort of framing is important but just to to make you aware the climate change risk assessment that we're talking about focuses mainly on physical risk but I think it's an important point to actually going forward to to look at this together and and sort of also look at the interactions because these different types of risks are also interdependent so just as a starting point but today we're mainly talking about the physical risk. Next slide please. Well that's a long list of risk and opportunities that were identified I think the key point is also to look at the colour coding so this is from across the whole CCRA through your report and you know the colour coding gives you an idea of you know what the recommendations are going forward you know where more action is needed and I don't want to go into detail because this covers the broad spectrum from you know infrastructure to build environment natural environment international but also business and industry and that's where we're going to focus on. Next slide please. So these are the seven priority areas that we investigated and that we highlight in the technical report here and you'll notice that you know it sometimes it's actually quite difficult to to to decide what's the best lenses is it by hazard so we're looking at business risk from flooding or from coastal change water scarcity or is it in terms of a particular sector and here we have risk to finance investment and insurance and access to capital or is it in terms of impacts on employee productivity either due to infrastructure disruption or heat and then there's also disruption to supply chains and that's obviously a very topical one and I'm sure we can have a good discussion also how climate change is starting to to actually interfere with with the already quite fragile supply chains that we have and then the last point is the opportunities from changes in demand for goods and services so that's kind of a spectrum of of the the key aspects that we're covered. Next slide please and I just wanted to give you a bit of a flavour I mean I don't have time to go into detail and again I would urge you to take a look but you know an important aspect of our risk assessment was also to get an idea of the scale of the risk so you know ideally we would know okay what's the situation right now how much does it how much damage how much losses are caused today and how is that going to change going forward you know that sounds like a simple question unfortunately it's not that simple to answer so unlisted here a couple of you know the the more sort of quantified conclusions in terms of magnitude and no surprise usually it's on flooding and also coastal change where we have most sort of quantifiable evidence but that doesn't mean that the other risks are less you know less important it just means that we have you know less evidence and also less sort of quantifications and less experience so that's another important point to note so you see here some you know quite sobering figures in terms of changes to risk and also what this might mean depending on the climate change scenario that we're going to experience and some significant changes so on the flooding side you know even under two degree warming we're going to see increases of 27% up to 40% by 2080 and that could go way higher in a four degree scenario and I think you know that that sort of storyline applies basically throughout the risks and you see this also here with the coastal change on water scarcity I think this is interesting because when you look at today's risk I mean we seem to be doing okay but we also see where potential hot spots are and how that actually finely balanced system could easily you know get out of sync and what the implications would be across the UK and in particular regions so there is for example a map that kind of gives you an idea of you know how water scarcity is expected to evolve then risk to finance investment and insurance and access to capital it's an area that has got significant attention I would say less so in terms of you know maybe new products or you know new services but certainly in terms of understanding and in terms of companies also embracing and investigating and being more transparent about risks so you know there is limited evidence of physical climate risk affecting price changes but you know this could change suddenly in the wake of more extreme events and also events compounding events connected events and then going forward depending on the warming scenario you know we are expecting to see quite significant impacts on that sector next slide please. On the employee productivity it is proven that you know heat can have negative impacts on employees health and well-being and also you know infrastructure failures and this is an area that actually will require more investigation and you know also better understanding I mean I think we can also learn from other places from all around the world but even here in the UK you know we see this happening basically through heat waves and the impacts that that has but at the moment it's a picture that is only sort of emerging now and it's certainly an area that will require more investigation. Supply chain distribution network I'm sure we'll come back to that in the discussion because you know this is already a significant issue but I'm always surprised when I then talk about people who work with risk management tools that they find this actually very hard to track and see how risk sort of moves through supply chains and distribution networks because well that's the old saying you don't need to get your feet wet to be affected by a flood and I think that applies also to to the business sector of course and then lastly on opportunities I mean there are some quantifications there's also a survey to sort of track how many new opportunities are there and I think the key challenge is also to see you know our business is realising these opportunities do they actually also have the tools and capacity to then start acting on that and that's something that I think going forward will also require further investigation. Next slide please. So I mentioned that then the conclusion of the technical report is this sort of urgency scoring and you can see a summary here in terms of more action needed further investigation sustaining current action which applies to the risk to finance investment and insurance aspect and maintaining a watching brief which in our chapter we you know the none of the risk has actually got that rating in fact all the risks that we looked at have increased in their sort of magnitude compared to CCRA2 so that's an important observation and again there's a useful business summary on the website. So next slide please. So I just wanted to leave you with two further thoughts which might be useful for the discussion when you talk about climate change risk assessment in a corporate context in particular with large companies I mean there has been a massive shift and we noticed that in our discussions in our evidence collection in terms of awareness also in terms of disclosure and in terms of response also to regulatory pressures and TCFD many of you will be involved in that and I think that is that's a process that is really sort of gathering pace but if we move to the next slide we need to be careful not to sort of assume that that applies across the range of businesses and particular with smaller companies you know the awareness but also the the application of tools the assessment of risk is really at an early stage and I think that's an important finding not to sort of get get carried away by you know the the the hype that comes from you know this growing activity by by some of the leaders but also to to keep in mind you know what's happening across the board and I think you know that's that's an important observation and then the last point I wanted to make was next slide please. This challenge of lock-ins and you know I think this is basically lock-in is is you make a decision today and you're putting the company onto a certain trajectory either in terms of technology in terms of location that you choose to invest in in terms of products and services and I think this is a real concern because you know sometimes you might feel that well you know climate change impacts are you know are maybe one or two decades away from really becoming a key issue for our company well but let's not forget that you're making decisions today that set you on track for you know where you are what you do how you operate over that time period and you know adjusting and and changing track is often very costly in some cases actually not possible so I think this is a really important point to yeah to to establish that actually you know we already looked in certain trajectories and you know it's very important to to not assume that you know this will actually only matter you know when when the flood leads it's a really high instead you know this anticipatory action and starting to manage the risks and and being smart about it while you still can is an important message and with that I hope I whetted your appetite so please take a look at the the reports and yeah back to you Rutherland. Thank you very much Svenja and you've made some interesting points which we'll pick up in the in the discussion can I just remind everyone to type in please in the Q&A box any questions that they may have I'm keeping an eye on any that are coming through but we'll welcome those for the panel and next I shall pass on to David Stile to talk about the advice report um that we've produced thanks David. Hello to everyone so in this presentation I'm going to provide a preview of the CCC's advice to government as part of the fellow UK climate change risk assessment drawing on Svenja's chapter as well as all the other thematic technical chapters and all the supporting research and reports that were done as well next slide please so the assessment found that overall the level of urgency of adaptation has increased since 2017 of the 61 risks and opportunities identified a higher proportion that's scored as more action needed relative to the same assessment five years ago and for the business risks six of seven were scored as more action or further investigation there are two reasons for this change in the level of urgency the first is that new evidence since 2017 suggests that the level of risk is higher than when previously assessed and the second related reason is that now the gap between the level of risk and the level of current and planned adaptation is now wider next slide please the committee identified eight high priority areas for further adaptation in the next two years these were selected on the basis of the urgency of additional action the gap in UK adaptation planning the opportunity to integrate adaptation into forthcoming policy commitments and a need to avoid locking in poor planning especially as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic the first four of these high priority areas relate to different risks for the natural environment and then there are also risks relating to failure of the power system increased exposure to heating homes and other buildings and risks to the UK from climate change impacts overseas there's also a risk to supply of food goods and vital services these climate-related collapse of supply chains and distribution networks which was heavily on the evidence in Stanius chapter as well as evidence in the infrastructure and international chapters next slide please so the UK and other countries are currently experiencing supply chain disruption now and we're seeing some of the potential consequences of that including loss of access to key goods and services potential price increases as well as general higher uncertainty for both businesses and consumers which affects people's everyday lives as well as the performance of the economy but we know that although the today's supply chain disruption isn't related to climate related causes that extreme weather is already causing supply chain disruption both extreme weather in the UK and internationally these hazards are going to increasingly affect supplies infrastructure and transport routes some of the adaptation actions that government and business can do in response involve providing better information and advice especially for smaller businesses building better capacity to manage share and transfer risk diversification of supply chain risks and stronger reporting requirements for businesses and infrastructure providers this includes the adaptation reporting power or ARP which invites organisations of a public nature with climate sensitive responsibilities such as infrastructure providers to report on the risks they face and the adaptation actions they're taking in response the committee has previously recommended that the ARP reporting should be made mandatory rather than voluntary due to the benefits it brings so just helping to engage organisations build capacity and share critical evidence and good practice next slide please in addition to assessing the risks and thinking about the benefits of adapting now the committee also reviewed the evidence on the adaptation gap in the risk assessment and looked at how adaptation is currently being implemented from that it drew out 10 principles for effective adaptation some of these are about good long-term planning such as integrating adaptation into other policies and planning for both two and four degree warming levels others are more about making good decisions that maximise benefits over costs including avoiding locking but also addressing and addressing inequalities in particular making sure existing inequalities aren't exacerbated by any result in adaptation actions that haven't taken these into account all of these principles need to sit within a vision for a well adapted UK so that there's a clear aim and that this is underpinned by proper resources and metrics that's why I'm discovering this presentation so I'll now hand back over to Thank you very much David and any businesses that are on on on this webinar on I I went I went name them but there are a number that are responsible for what I call infrastructure I'd certainly encourage you please to do complete the annual reporting power I think you're too late for this year but please if you haven't done so please then please keep a look out within your organisations I'm now going to pass initially to Doug to just give your perspective as an advisor to many companies please Doug on on on what you've heard so far and how you've contributed absolutely it's lovely to be with you all and I look forward to hearing the things that you would like us to address those folks on the phone I look forward to that but I just wanted to make a few remarks I mean I think the level of awareness relating to climate change in corporate boardrooms has been absolutely breathtaking over the last three years and that shouldn't be any surprise to most of you and I think the main sort of driver of that has been the level of engagement from investors around the climate agenda but I think that level of engagement within business is kind of matched by an equal measure by a lack of understanding so the boardrooms are kind of you know mixing terms in relation to sort of net zero and climate resilience and climate adaptation and climate risk it all gets very blurred but what I'm seeing in terms of the kind of biggest change in all of this is the level of engagement now from finance and I think what TCFD has done is it's very much led to financing I have a really important role in sorting this out and getting absolute clarity around all of this so investors have been absolutely key I think TCFD has been absolutely instrumental in getting organisations to recognise that this isn't just about you know responding to climate change in a non-business sort of way as a nice to have this is about responding to climate change in a way that recognises the impact that it will have on our business strategy and the impact that our strategy will have on the climate so I think that's been a real game changer I'm conscious I'm kind of talking at quite a sort of theoretical level but really practically where do I think companies are I think most companies in terms of their really deep understanding of climate risks are still at the very embryonic stage I think you'll see variations across sectors but if I think about the majority and I'm including within this some of the world's largest companies the real specifics of where are the physical changes of climate risk actually going to disrupt our operations and what will be the financial risks associated with that I would say most organisations are still at the very early stages and even with those companies that you know have been mandated to have adaptation plans for many years I think the consideration of climate risk has been somewhat limited to the engineering consequence of climate risks and how we engineer out the problem or rather how we're set up to be to adapt quickly I think a big miss in a lot of those assessments is actually looking at the climate risks across the full value chain so let's say you're a water company I think water companies have done generally done a really good job as to how climate change will affect you know a catchment area and their core duties of you know treating wastewater and providing clean water but I don't think they've done enough to actually understand how their customers are going to be affected by climate change and what that might mean in relation to how they continue to deliver those services to them I think one more observation I'm conscious my colleagues on the panel will also want to make there as I look forward to getting your reactions and I think there's been a lot of focus on supply chain resilience and disruption with particularly in certain sectors but I think in the majority of cases that focus has been outside of the UK in terms of getting that real depth of understanding because it's been seen that the more pressing risks have been in you know African countries where there've been significant droughts countries in Southeast Asia that have experienced very significant flooding but actually what I think now is that the extreme weather events that we have seen in Western Europe that we've seen in in the United States I think and I'm already seeing this in the discussions that I'm having is is taking much more heightened awareness as to how climate change in those areas that are much closer to home are starting to disrupt our business so I'm going to pause there and let others share their thoughts but it'd be wonderful to to get any questions and debate this further. Thank you thanks very much Doug next if I just go please to senior for your perspective senior thank you. Yeah thank you very much and it's quite great to follow Doug I think I think a lot of our so perspectives will kind of mirror each other so I'll kind of pick up in some ways where he left off but I think that first and foremost I think perhaps from my sort of optimistic perspective I think that the awareness around adaptation as Doug kind of alluded to is quite high I think that is probably higher than so what the average person might think but that they're often seen as a crucial part of business strategies at the minute and that it goes hand in hand with net zero and kind of reducing emissions but I think that there are perhaps fewer opportunities to talk about that publicly from a business perspective given the amount of attention that is around the net zero target and part of that is because it is seen as a significant corporate risk the failure to adapt but also alongside that like Svenja mentioned during her presentation that there are significant opportunities by addressing this early on and integrating that into their strategies because it can help create new goods services it can also in the long term open up new markets increase competitiveness and these are some of the issues that we look at a lot when we engage with our members and before I kind of give my perspective on kind of I think next steps because I think that there is a very clear call here from the CCC and others on the panel that we do need to go further but before I do that I wanted to give a couple of examples as well of some of the businesses that have taken quite ambitious strategies to tackle not just emission reductions but also adaptation as part of their strategies to illustrate how these go very much handed hand and beginning by a very large corporate we have Nestle who have set a science based target around halving their emissions by 2030 reaching at zero by 2050 and that's a massive commitment for a business of that size but as part of that they do look at quite a comprehensive suite of actions and I think that part of the discussion today is particularly interesting to note that includes issues such as water quality, reforestation, conservation, agricultural practices and all of this works very hand in hand with emission reduction measures. Similarly a much more than retail focus to a company we've got IKEA where we see a strong emphasis around circularity being climate positive so kind of not just looking at being so net and zero but very much looking at the positive aspect of that and then setting big milestones very early on IKEA have milestones already for 2030 around some of the commitments that they're looking to meet but as part of this not only do they look at secondary materials and new opportunities for repair reuse but water plays a significant role in that forest positive is another area where we see significant commitments from companies of this size for example Kingfisher they've also set a forest positive vision for their company and these are quite positive big level actions that some of these companies have taken and it would be easy to think of these as quite retail consumer facing businesses but on the other side of the spectrum as well we have CMEX which is a cement company where they have alongside their net zero concrete vision for 2050 they've also recognised quite crucially the role of water action plans by diversity action plans as part of this can integrate these but looking at some of these examples I think it is clear to say that there needs to be an increased urgency an increased action and for that there needs to be clarity on range of policy measures from the national level which I think the CCC recognises quite clearly in their report around recognising adaptation in a lot of key strategies and policy measures that are being put forward at the minute and also integrating that with mitigation as well to make sure that businesses can easily consider these as a whole suite of measures that can be done together rather than addressing these in silos because there are some areas where adaptation measures can have obviously positive impacts in terms of climate mitigation so I think that the good news here is that there are obviously a lot of opportunities here for government to kind of set their clarity of direction coming up through for example the environment bill and the associated targets that we'll see through that the environmental land management scheme that's come out the planning bill and all of these need to really illustrate how all of this comes together informs a holistic framework because by doing that we can see sectoral transformations as well rather than also just individual businesses setting very good ambitious strategies we can see quite significant whole economy transformations and I think I will kind of start wrapping up but two other aspects that I just wanted to mention as well was around the very important role here of finance and from the Green Finance. TCFD as Doug has mentioned has played a significant role but we need to make sure that also the nature disclosure framework that's been developed at the minute but these work hand in hand and finally I think that there is also an important issue here around metrics as well to ensure that we all measure the same thing and that businesses report on the same measures when they report on progress as well but obviously that's a significant discussion as well but I think a crucial piece of the puzzle as well so thank you very much. Thank you very much and now if I can turn for a Scottish perspective really to Anna for your views. Thanks Roslyn and thanks for inviting me along to this discussion today. From my perspective I see and hear the key messages from the Climate Change Committee around actually this challenge of increasing resilience and adapting to climate change is growing that we have this clear and increasing risk profile across sectors and across locations across the UK and I think there's absolutely a key role for business in addressing this challenge but I also think that collectively we need to move away from treating this as a risk management exercise and looking at risks and identifying actions that respond to individual risks the kind of adaptation responses that are incremental. Clearly different organisations and businesses need to get their own house in order and to be understanding their risk profiles and responding appropriately but in order for us to actually not be having the same conversation in five years time when the next risk assessment is published and being concerned about the ever-increasing gap I think we need to move more and be looking more at systems change and at transformational actions that address multiple risks and for us in Scotland this is I guess playing out in reality through one of our major adaptation initiatives in the Glasgow City Region the climate ready Clyde initiative which is a multi sector response and I think there needs to be greater collaboration and opportunity for business to be working alongside public sector and third sector partners to address and the scale of adaptation challenge that we face in the UK so for example in the Glasgow City Region through a collaborative process they have a shared regional risk assessment that anyone can access and use it's an open and transparent evidence base on the back of that it develops 11 strategic long-term interventions that are designed to address multiple risks and 16 flagship actions where partners are showing joint responsibility for delivering tangible progress and in that case we have for example a major infrastructure operator leading the charge in terms of saying look we're going to convene the infrastructure operators here we're going to start changing the way in which we assess climate risk for our investments and our projects and we're going to share that learning we're going to encourage and be a champion for our sector because there are these strategic interventions set out as well it it gives greater clarity for the private sector as to how they can contribute so the ambition around ensuring that the transition to net zero homes is actually climate resilient as well is very a very strong and clear policy and there's a commitment there to actually developing adaptation and innovation challenges where the private sector can actively see where the opportunities are to be a part of the solution as well um so yes that's this perspective that I wanted to share just as a sort of different angle perhaps to to some of the other inputs that have been brought but thanks for the opportunity to contribute look forward to hearing what the questions and discussions bring thank you very much everybody we've got some questions coming through certainly um I would um reiterate on this plea that um we shouldn't only see this from a risk point of view but um as our reports say from opportunities as well but the first question that's come up um is actually about risk so we'll deal with that first um what percentage we've been asked what percentage of businesses maintain risk registers and where does adaptation risk sit and to what extent is it displaced by when more uh urgent topics come along for example such as COVID and in my experience it gets displaced quite rapidly um but um I'll turn to Doug first for your view Doug and then I'll go to Svenja so I'm seeing climate change as a topic appear in most risk registers now at least of the large companies that I work with and I do caveat that with that I'm predominantly working with um FTSE 100 companies the problem with that though is that climate change as a risk isn't really anything in its own right you need to break it down into the different component risks and very few organizations have done that effectively in terms of actually you know having adaptation risk as a specific risk that is tracked adequately at board level through the risk committee so I think I think it is an area for um shared learning and practice improvement there are some companies that do it really well I think for example the banks are starting to do an incredibly good job at linking climate related risks into their credit risk processes so I think that that's that's good I think um oil and gas companies and utilities companies have started to really systematically include it but I think across the board it's a it's an area where significant improvement is needed Svenja is yeah I mean I I haven't seen data about you know how many companies have it on their risk register but I mean I think terminologies matter and from my experience working with companies I think hardly anybody uses the term adaptation or you know just has climate risk there you might on the risk register then find you know um risks for access to facilities or you know failure of suppliers or you know damage to to to production facilities or you know employee productivity being impacted and I think that's the lens to then say yes you know that can happen because of very many things and climate change is already you know affecting that and I think that's the sort of narrative that that I see and that makes it also yeah well very real I think rather than saying well where is adaptation on your on your risk register thank you and I would senior Anna do you senior to you yeah I can come in quickly I mean I think perhaps speaking up on the COVID point I think that what it's easy to think that is something that immediately displaced sort of climate commitments but actually what we noticed across our business membership is that the commitment to tackle climate change and nature restoration and work on nature restoration actually the level ambition maintained throughout COVID I think that there were obviously new risks that companies had to adjust to and respond to quite quickly but I think that in terms of the overarching commitments they didn't decrease which I think is cause for optimism but I think that the points that others have made in terms of also breaking down I think climate risks is something that is particularly useful because I think that that helps businesses focus their attention a bit more and I think aspects such as flooding and drought and kind of acknowledging that I think also helps really focus efforts as well but I think that just just as a cause for optimism I think that it's recognised it's here I think that the momentum is still being maintained despite challenges like COVID but I think that obviously more work needs to be done across the board to make sure that businesses play this vital role that they need to play. Thank you. I'm going to go now to the next question which I'm going to ask David Stan to field initially which is about how do we encourage more adaptation across the public sector and also whether or not there's a perspective to how much mitigation seems to win over adaptation as again really in the public sector to David I know you're probably going to say we do our best to encourage them and I think there is some movement in the public sector but I'll go to you. Thanks Roslyn. I think on taking the second part of your question first I think historically government and a lot of organisations have found it easier to get to grips with net zero for several reasons it has a single quantitative measure in greenhouse gas emissions to focus on it's some of the actions in response are perhaps more intuitive than adaptation actions and there's more uncertainty of adaptation in terms of considering different scenarios but like you said I think this is changing government departments becoming more and more familiar with adaptation and including it in their their policies which is very welcome and government itself can help send businesses the right policy signals and provide greater poverty certainty with its own actions for example including adaptation in its public procurement criteria which it did earlier this summer and including in key frameworks such as the green financing framework announced earlier this summer which will also monitor funds directed to climate change adaptation and report how they're allocated and the impacts of those homes so I think it goes back to those principles of adaptation that the committee suggested in ensuring it's integrated into key policies and sending those signals to businesses. Thank you and I'm going to go on to the next questions because they're coming through thick and fast the next one really is about more help for business especially small businesses so we've got the ISO and BSI standards but two questions really how do we encourage to you how do we encourage businesses to use those and a query if it's a small business do we need to and where can we advise people to go for more help in climate scenario planning and generally reporting and and managing adaptation so and Svenja I think if that's okay I'm going to go to you first and then I'll go pass on to Doug. Yeah I mean I guess in terms of encouraging I mean you know there's the carrot and the stick approach I guess so you know I've seen this you know sort of having an impact for example when investors or you know the provision of capital or insurance are actually requiring you to show that you have either you know best practice plans in place you have business continuity plans you know I think that that's part of where I think this this can actually gain more traction um but then I think you could also consider whether this becomes actually a standard procedure for for businesses to actually you know provide that kind of assessment and also make it publicly available I mean you know it's it really also depends I guess in terms of sectors in terms of size of the business and and how best to do that because SMEs are often really struggling and also identifying ownership and you know the one person who has to do all that I mean they basically spend all their time just reporting and just floating on various aspects so I think it needs to be a mixed mix but yeah so it would be good to actually maybe hear from from some businesses that are represented on what they would find useful. David I know that we do have still me on our website various tools available do you want to just flag those up and perhaps you could put them in the chat box? Yes the link to the UK climate risk website was put in earlier in the chat box but particularly for scenarios you can see some of the ways in which we approached scenarios in from research done by Cambridge econometrics for general socio-economic dimensions as well as particular climate and adaptation scenarios we applied to our flood and water projections I think I was also going to add more generally on tools and guidance is for business one thing that the committee has been suggesting is a replacement for the environment agencies climate ready support service which provided tools and resources for business and we have something more like that now in the form of a small an SME climate hub which at the moment still focuses its resources mainly on net zero but there's the opportunity for hubs like that to help promote adaptation and make resources like BSI standards or scenario guidance more accessible for for organisations. Thank you and Anna. Thanks Roslyn just with the the point around support for SMEs in particular I think it's sometimes risk assessment can cause a paralysis by analysis and it doesn't actually help organisations to take action or to know what to do next and I think locally led adaptation is something that we need to pay much more attention to in the UK it's been done very about some very interesting work internationally and for recently in the outer herody in islands of Scotland we've been doing some work with crofting and farming communities there and we have all of the data and evidence but hearing their lived experience of how climate impacts are affecting businesses are affecting communities there is enabling much more effective and meaningful adaptation responses in terms of just under a deeper understanding of the collective challenge and the role that different actors have to play in addressing that so I think there certainly is a need for businesses to be aware of how they can assess their risks and the kind of support services that David referenced say I have a role to play but they will never replace the need for dialogue for a deep understanding of local risks and a collective action in response to those so yeah I think there's a balance to be struck between promoting risk assessment and evidence gathering and actually that sort of pragmatic approach to action. Thank you. Doug do I know you deal mainly with the larger companies so. Just a couple of things so I think there's a lot of pressure building on small businesses around climate change or rather the larger end of the small business spectrum one sort of the larger SMEs are going to need to comply with TCFD over the next four years. Banks are increasingly including climate criteria in terms of access to finance so they're going to find the pinch there and increasingly large buyers of services are putting in place climate criteria in terms of just serving companies so I think there's a need for a lot of support for smaller businesses in responding to this you know help because I mean at the end of the day if they just do it by themselves they're not going to learn from all those experiences and they they're going to have to invest much more than they can possibly afford and actually getting there so I mean David I'm not immersed in the things that you described but they sound like great initiatives to support small to medium sized enterprises but I think the point is is the pressure is building from many from many parts and you know we might have a perverse situation that because of the lack of ability for small to medium sized enterprise to respond just in terms of the interests of stakeholders they could find themselves damaging their business performance and that is I think an unintended consequence potentially of this. I think and Svenja mentioned the whole issue of interdependencies and one of the questions that has come through has been asked about how much do you think companies adapt and take action where they've got their own physical assets that are at risk of climate change and how much do companies just hope that people in their supply chains are taking action and that's certainly sort of what we've seen quite a lot of evidence of um these past few weeks I think Svenja do you just want to come in on that? Yeah I think on the on the direct sort of the physical impact when your assets are being being damaged I mean you know that is I would say someone relatively straightforward because you see it happening you act we actually have particular on the flooding side we also have fairly good data I think the the issue there is that businesses often feel well that's taken care of because we we are insured and you know that's an interesting dimension then um you know having worked in the insurance sector myself I you know that sort of dynamic of engaging then with companies and helping them actually to manage and reduce risk I mean that is happening on on other risks as well so I think it can happen with climate risk so on fire risk for example you know the insurers are actually very actively working with clients to to manage the risk so I think with climate risk we could see the same indirect risk through supply chains or you know customers not being able to access facilities or you know various things I mean you really need to I think map it out and what can go wrong and what are the potential issues there and actually my experience is that that there are very few tools that allow you to do that and I was surprised in when we did the CCRA through your research we engaged with some of the risk modeling companies and they also oh you know if you talk about indirect or you know interconnected risk that's that's a bit too difficult we can't do that so that's some homework I think okay thank you so I'm going to go to the last question now because I'm mindful of time and just to warn them this will be for Anna and for Zinnia really um and it's about finance of a small scale localisation of industry so very much sort of local farming and food supply within the UK and how can farmers and et cetera take more advantage of of sort of green finance and Anna. Hi Ros, that's a very interesting specific question I don't know if I can do it justice um in responses specifically how farmers can take advantage of green finance so I would say that we have a whole programme of work in Scotland looking at adaptation funding and finance options and a lot of those are really exciting opportunities that look at the where those synergies are between financing options for adaptation responses that are drawing on and have that deep root in in sort of nature based solutions and also um the transition to net zero as well so we'd see that a lot of the funding and finance that needs to happen to see us take much quicker and faster action to adapt climate change should be able to support and net zero ambitions which are intrinsically linked to the natural environment conservation of the natural environment sustainable farming valuing nature differently so I I guess it's we see it as a really really important area of work to be explored further and absolutely key to seeing action happen is releasing these different forms of financing so I don't think I've done your question justice but let's give you a flavour of some of the work we're thinking about and thank you very much and Cynya a last word from from you um I think it will be one of optimism I think that with for example elms being developed in in England I think that there is an opportunity to strengthen that awareness and support farmers further in making those shifts because by looking at land use a bit differently and as well as aligning sort of their practices with so the climate challenge and adaptation I think that there is an opportunity to greater support that because as we've seen having some local supply chains are crucial and I think that also looking at the larger businesses as well that um employee farmers as well having that supply chain engagement will be crucial as well which some are doing but seeing that a much greater level I think will be very important but we have that opportunity now to kind of integrate that a bit better going forward and I hope to see some more details on elms going forward that will do just that thank you and I want to thank the panelists and all of you who have listened in I'm really sorry that we couldn't answer all your questions um I know there's one in there about where you can get more information on water scarcity and I think Sven is replied to that one so and also please don't hesitate to come back to us at the CCC for further information and just before we finish I'd like to highlight that we've got two further webinars in this series and a link to sign up will has just appeared there in the chat box so thank you very much everybody thank you panelists and hope to see you next