Let’s be honest—the weather isn’t what it used to be. A “once-in-a-century” storm seems to roll through every few years now. Wildfire smoke chokes skylines thousands of miles from the flames. Flash floods turn parking lots into lakes. For businesses, this isn’t just a news story; it’s a direct threat to operations, supply chains, and, frankly, survival.
That’s where a rock-solid business continuity plan comes in. But the old playbook, built for a single, isolated disaster like a fire or a server crash, just doesn’t cut it anymore. Climate volatility is a different beast. It’s pervasive, it’s compounding, and it’s chronic. Your plan needs to evolve from a simple disaster recovery checklist to a living, breathing strategy for resilience. Here’s how to build one.
Why Your Old BCP Might Be Obsolete
Traditional business continuity planning often assumed a return to normal. You’d have a disruption, activate your plan, and then things would go back to baseline. Climate change shatters that assumption. The baseline is shifting. The “new normal” is constant adaptation.
Think of it like this: preparing for a one-time power outage is one thing. Preparing for rolling blackouts that happen every summer during heatwaves, while also dealing with employee heat stress and spiking energy costs? That’s a multi-layered challenge requiring a different mindset. You’re not just planning for an event; you’re planning for a new operating environment.
The Core Pillars of a Climate-Resilient Continuity Plan
1. Risk Assessment: Beyond the Flood Zone Map
Start by throwing out your old assumptions. A proper climate risk assessment for business continuity looks at direct and indirect threats. Sure, is your physical location in a floodplain? That’s table stakes. Now, dig deeper.
- Your Supply Chain: Where are your key suppliers located? Are their regions prone to drought, hurricanes, or political instability worsened by resource scarcity?
- Employee Safety & Mobility: Can your team get to work safely during extreme heat or poor air quality? Do you have remote work protocols that are truly operational, not just theoretical?
- Cascading Failures: A wildfire in one state can knock out a critical supplier, a heatwave can collapse the grid your data center relies on, and a flood can wipe out transportation routes for miles. Map these connections.
2. Operational Adaptations: Building Flexibility In
Resilience is about flexibility. Your plan must detail specific operational pivots for different climate scenarios. This isn’t vague—it’s procedural.
- For Extreme Heat: Shift outdoor work hours, mandate more breaks, invest in cooling. Protect both people and equipment.
- For Poor Air Quality: Distribute high-quality respirators, upgrade HVAC filters, and enable remote work without penalty.
- For Flood & Storm Risk: Have pre-contracted, rapid-deployment sandbagging or water-barrier services. Know exactly how and where to move critical inventory or IT infrastructure at a moment’s notice.
3. Communication: The Glue That Holds It All Together
When an extreme weather event looms, panic spreads faster than the storm. Your communication plan must be crystal clear, multi-channel, and activated in stages.
- Pre-Event: Clear alerts to employees, suppliers, and customers about potential disruptions. “Heads up, here’s what we’re monitoring.”
- During the Event: A single, reliable source of truth (like a dedicated hotline or status page) for employee check-ins and updates. No rumors.
- Post-Event: Realistic timelines for resumption of services. Over-communicate. Empathy matters as much as information here.
Key Components to Document (The Nitty-Gritty)
Okay, so we’ve talked philosophy. Let’s get practical. Your documented plan should explicitly include:
| Component | Climate-Resilient Considerations |
| Team & Roles | Clearly define a Resilience Lead. Include roles for supply chain liaison, employee wellness checks, and external comms. |
| Asset Inventory | What’s truly mission-critical? Prioritize digital assets and irreplaceable items. List cloud backup locations and recovery time objectives. |
| Alternative Worksites | Not just one backup office. Consider distributed work models and “work-from-anywhere” tech stacks as a primary strategy. |
| Supplier & Vendor Info | Have their continuity plans on file. Identify single points of failure and diversify where possible. It’s a hassle, but a necessary one. |
| Recovery Procedures | Step-by-step guides for different scenarios (e.g., “Procedure for 7-day office closure due to wildfire smoke”). |
Testing and Updating: The Plan is a Verb, Not a Noun
Here’s where most plans gather dust. A plan you don’t test is just a hopeful document. You need to stress-test it. Run tabletop exercises with your team using plausible, climate-driven scenarios. “A Category 4 hurricane has made landfall 200 miles south, and our primary supplier is in the path. What do we do first?”
These exercises reveal the gaps—the phone numbers that are disconnected, the employee who doesn’t have a laptop to work remotely, the backup generator that’s never been serviced. And then, you update. You know, at least annually, or after any near-miss event. This living document is your best insurance.
The Bigger Picture: Resilience as a Competitive Edge
Developing a business continuity plan for climate change isn’t just about risk mitigation—though that’s reason enough. Honestly, it’s becoming a marker of a serious, forward-thinking company. Investors are asking about it. Customers are valuing it. Employees want to work for a company that cares for their safety in a changing world.
It signals that you’re not just reacting to the world as it was, but engaging with the world as it is. You’re building an organization that can bend without breaking, that can find opportunity in disruption, and that has a plan to be there for its people and its customers no matter what the sky brings.
So start where you are. Assess your unique vulnerabilities. Talk to your team about their concerns. Write something down, test it, and then make it better. The goal isn’t a perfect plan locked in a binder. It’s a resilient organization, ready for tomorrow.
