Companies Urged to Fortify Supply Chains From Climate Change Disruption

@KevinDooley2020

NEW YORK and SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – The Sustainability Consortium and HSBC released a new report today urging companies to prepare supply chains for the risk of climate change disruptions that threaten to raise costs and jeopardize their ability to meet customer needs.

Co-authored by Christy Slay, director of technical alignment for The Sustainability Consortium, and Kevin Dooley, chief scientist for the consortium and faculty member at Arizona State University, with funding and support from the HSBC Centre of Sustainable Finance, Improving Supply Chain Resilience to Manage Climate Change Risk warns that climate change will result in more extreme weather events and continued sea-level rise continue to disrupt supply chains configurations with increasing more frequency. Supply chain disruptions from climate change can increase the cost or lower the quality or quantity of supplies provided to a manufacturing by its suppliers.

"We all see the myriad of supply chain disruptions occurring during the current coronavirus pandemic," Dooley said. "Unfortunately this prefaces the types of challenges that supply chains will face in the future from increasing climate change. Now is the time to create more supply chain resilience."

"As companies worldwide are in the midst of dealing with COVID-19's impact on their business operations and their supply chains, current events put in sharp relief the impact of supply chain disruptions on a global scale," said Patricia Gomes, regional head of Global Trade and Receivable Finance. "We're helping our customers think holistically about supply chain risks, and this report provides valuable insight into planning for, and mitigating disruptions caused by, climate change."

The whitepaper also found that:

• Climate change risks may also force more investor attention on a company's supply chain related to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To better plan for the future, companies need to incorporate climate change into a broader supply chain risk management strategy.
• Bridging and buffering are strategies to enhance a company's ability to withstand risk events and protect against inevitable failures and supply disruptions. Risk events include increased cost, lower quality supply, and delayed supply, where a disruption can delay delivering goods or services to a company's own customers.
• Companies that address resiliency can be more attractive to employees, customers, and investors. The authors include a supply chain climate resiliency questionnaire for those wanting to do a quick assessment of a company's supply chain resiliency or discuss with managers.

The Sustainability Consortium, founded by the University of Arkansas and Arizona State University, is a global organization propelling the consumer goods industry forward to create more sustainability products through science-based assessments and solutions. In order to create change on a global scale, in an increasingly volatile world, the consortium incentivizes and supports manufacturers and their suppliers to adopt new practices and design more sustainable products. Their full impact report is available here.

The HSBC Centre of Sustainable Finance provides thought leadership about transforming the real economy and strengthening the financial system response to climate change. As HSBC's in-house think tank, the centre generates and promotes publicly available reports that support the climate change ambitions of key stakeholders including industry, financial regulators, governments and financial institutions.