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Reports

Assessing business risk and preparedness method overview (142 KB)
Scoping and sizing of the Scottish adaptation economy (250 KB)

Authors

  • Michael Bonaventura

Published

7 May 2018

Contact

Anne Marte Bergseng
Project Manager - Climate resilience and social change
annemarte.bergseng@ed.ac.uk
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Measuring the resilience of Scottish businesses

Achieving Scotland’s economic ambition means our businesses need to thrive and grow as the climate changes. However, currently we know little about how they deal with climate risks and how they make the most of the market opportunities from climate change.

The Adaptation Sub-Committee’s (ASC) independent assessment of the Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme recommended that the Scottish Government should develop policies to support exploiting the economic opportunity, at the same time as encouraging businesses in high risk areas to become more resilient to climate-related hazards, ensuring continuous improvement through reporting and sharing best practice.

To support this work we have researched methodologies for baseline studies of both these aspects of making Scotland’s businesses climate ready:

  • Proposing a methodology to assess the ‘adaptation market’ in Scotland. The report makes recommendations on how to progress the scoping and sizing of the Adaptation & Resilience (Climate Change) (A&RCC) Economy based on:
    • a definition of the sector based on previous assessments of the ‘green economy’
    • characterisation of earlier analyses ;
    • an indication of the range of data sources required to support these; and
    • options for a baseline study for Scotland.

This report is available here

  • To develop a method for gathering the evidence on climate risks required to:
    • estimate the extent to which Scottish businesses are exposed to climate-related hazards;
    • evaluate the potential impact this may have on the Scottish economy; and
    • to understand businesses’ preparedness and their capacity to respond and recover.

The method includes a quantitative analysis of the potential impact of climate-related risks on each of the six key growth sectors and the design of primary research that will establish a baseline of vulnerability, highlighting sectoral differences.  The resulting evidence base will inform the development of the second SCCAP as well as being relevant to the future development of business and economic development policy.

This report is available here

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