Free masterclass on turning climate risk insights into adaptation action
Climate risks now pose measurable threats to UK business operations. Flooding can halt production. Extreme heat can damage equipment. Drought can disrupt supply chains. These are not distant scenarios. They require decisions today about where to invest, which suppliers to rely on, and how to protect critical assets.
However, many organisations struggle to move from risk assessment to meaningful action. Identifying hazards is one thing. Deciding which deserve investment, building a business case, and assigning clear accountability is another. An online session scheduled for 19 November 2026 at 1:00 p.m. UK time will focus on exactly that gap.
Hosted by edie in partnership with SmartResilience, the 45-minute masterclass aims to help businesses translate climate-risk intelligence into practical adaptation measures. The session will be followed by a 15-minute question-and-answer period. Speakers include Joanna Gluzman-Laukkanen, Sustainability Board Advisor at SmartResilience, and Harish Pesala, CEO of SmartResilience.
For UK companies, the timing reflects a wider policy shift. Government expects businesses to protect their own sites and supply networks. Meanwhile, regulatory frameworks increasingly treat adaptation as an economic issue, not just an environmental one. Consequently, understanding exposure is no longer sufficient. Businesses need to act on what they know.
UK policy now treats adaptation as business resilience
The UK's third National Adaptation Programme, known as NAP3, covers the period from 2023 to 2028. This framework sets out how the country should respond to physical climate risks. Notably, it assigns responsibility for commercial resilience to the private sector, while government focuses on improving access to usable climate information.
On 30 April 2025, the Climate Change Committee published its first statutory progress assessment of NAP3. The report highlighted supply-chain resilience as an area requiring further action. Specifically, it noted that UK businesses remain exposed to external supply-chain shocks due to the country's openness to international trade.
The committee pointed out that climate-risk assessments consistently identify supply chains as a significant vulnerability. Despite this, progress in managing those risks has been uneven. The CCC described business supply-chain resilience as an area where advancement remains insufficient or limited.
In response, the government confirmed that the Department for Business and Trade had developed guidance and resources for small and medium-sized enterprises. It also acknowledged the need to coordinate climate analytics and metrics into formats that companies, particularly SMEs, can actually use to manage their risks.
Furthermore, the UK's Critical Imports and Supply Chains Strategy, published in 2024, addresses bottlenecks linked to long-term trends including climate change. Measures include improved trade data, a supply-chain resilience framework, and scenario stress-testing to identify vulnerabilities.
Why supply networks demand attention beyond owned assets
A business can remain fully operational at its own sites yet still face severe disruption. Flooding at a supplier's warehouse can halt production. Extreme heat affecting agricultural inputs can increase costs. Damage to ports or transport routes can delay shipments and strand inventory.
These indirect impacts often receive less attention than direct property risks. Nevertheless, they can be just as damaging. A credible adaptation strategy therefore requires visibility of key suppliers, logistics routes, dependencies, and potential points of failure.
The UK's climate-adaptation research framework specifically identifies risks to supply chains, shipping, trade routes, and the availability of natural resources. It states that businesses must adapt their organisational practices, physical sites, and supply chains to function effectively in a changed climate.
For many organisations, extending climate-risk analysis beyond owned assets represents a significant challenge. Companies often lack detailed information about second-tier and third-tier suppliers. Moreover, they may have limited influence over suppliers' own resilience measures.
Despite these difficulties, the policy direction is clear. Businesses cannot manage vulnerabilities they cannot see. Therefore, improving supply-chain visibility has become a necessary part of climate adaptation, not an optional extra.
What the November session will address
The masterclass will focus on four main areas. First, it will examine why organisations need to move beyond disclosure and identify the operational costs that climate risks can create. Second, it will explore how physical hazards can be translated into quantified, business-specific risks over current and longer-term time horizons.
Third, the session will cover how to prioritise adaptation measures, build an investment case, and assign responsibility for implementation. Finally, it will examine how businesses have used risk assessments, addressed delivery barriers, and evaluated improvements in resilience.
SmartResilience describes its role as providing location-specific climate-risk intelligence for individual business sites and supplier networks. The company's approach is intended to help organisations identify exposure, quantify potential impacts, and prioritise resilience measures rather than treating climate-risk analysis as a reporting exercise.
The event's central proposition is that organisations should use climate data to support decisions about capital investment, operational planning, procurement, and continuity. The session will explore how businesses can connect risk findings with immediate operational priorities and longer-term investment plans.
Registration details and session format
- The masterclass takes place on 19 November 2026 at 1:00 p.m. UK time.
- The session lasts 45 minutes, followed by a 15-minute question-and-answer period.
- It will be hosted by edie in partnership with SmartResilience.
- The format is an online webinar accessible from any location.
- Speakers are Joanna Gluzman-Laukkanen, Sustainability Board Advisor at SmartResilience, and Harish Pesala, CEO of SmartResilience.
- The focus is translating physical climate-risk assessments into adaptation action.
- International participants can join at 8:00 a.m. US Eastern time or 2:00 p.m. Central European time.
Turning risk intelligence into investment decisions
The shift from identifying risks to managing them has several practical implications for UK businesses. First, risk assessments must lead to prioritisation. Companies need to distinguish between risks that are material, urgent, and actionable and those that require monitoring only.
Second, adaptation requires investment. Measures may include flood protection, cooling and water-efficiency systems, backup power, site relocation, redesigned facilities, alternative suppliers, or revised inventory strategies. Each option carries costs that must be justified against potential losses.
Third, responsibility must be clear. Climate adaptation can fail when ownership remains with sustainability teams alone. Operations, procurement, finance, risk management, and senior leadership may all need defined roles. Without accountability, assessments gather dust rather than driving change.
Fourth, supply-chain resilience requires better information. Businesses cannot manage vulnerabilities they cannot see, particularly beyond first-tier suppliers. Consequently, many organisations now seek tools and frameworks to map dependencies and assess supplier exposure.
Fifth, SMEs face a particular challenge. Smaller organisations may lack the technical expertise and capital needed to undertake detailed assessments. Therefore, accessible data, guidance, and finance become increasingly important for this segment of the UK economy.
At SBS, we see these challenges regularly when working with businesses on carbon reporting and climate compliance. Companies often have robust data on their own emissions but limited visibility of physical climate risks, especially in their supply chains. Bridging that gap requires practical tools, not just more reports.
Implementation remains uneven despite policy progress
The Climate Change Committee's 2025 progress assessment suggests that while new initiatives have been launched, implementation remains patchy. Supply-chain risk management was specifically highlighted as an area where progress was still insufficient or limited.
This gap between understanding exposure and funding practical responses represents a significant business and policy challenge. Many organisations now possess climate-risk data. Fewer have translated that data into funded adaptation projects with clear owners and delivery timelines.
Several factors contribute to this implementation gap. Climate risks often compete with more immediate business priorities. Investment cases may be difficult to quantify when potential losses are uncertain. Responsibility can be unclear when risks span multiple departments or functions.
Additionally, adaptation measures may require long-term capital commitments that are hard to justify under short-term financial pressures. For publicly traded companies, explaining adaptation spending to shareholders can be challenging when benefits are uncertain and distant.
Nevertheless, the costs of inaction are becoming more visible. UK businesses have experienced supply-chain disruption, property damage, and operational downtime due to extreme weather. Consequently, the business case for adaptation is strengthening, even where regulatory drivers remain modest.
What separates useful assessments from wasted effort
Not all climate-risk assessments lead to action. The most useful outcomes are those that change investment decisions, operating procedures, and accountability structures. In contrast, assessments that produce maps of hazards but no prioritised action plan often fail to deliver value.
For organisations seeking to maximise the return on climate-risk analysis, several principles apply. First, assessments should focus on assets, suppliers, and routes that matter most to business continuity. A comprehensive global analysis may be less useful than a targeted assessment of critical dependencies.
Second, risks should be quantified in business terms wherever possible. Potential revenue loss, repair costs, downtime, and insurance impacts provide a clearer foundation for decision-making than abstract risk scores.
Third, adaptation options should be ranked by cost, feasibility, and effectiveness. This ranking allows organisations to sequence investments and focus resources on measures with the highest return.
Fourth, ownership must be assigned at a senior level. Climate adaptation often requires coordination across operations, procurement, finance, and strategy. Without executive sponsorship, cross-functional projects stall.
Finally, progress should be tracked through measurable indicators. These might include the number of critical sites with flood protection, the percentage of key suppliers assessed for climate risk, or the estimated reduction in potential business disruption.
For SMEs, these principles remain relevant but may need to be scaled appropriately. A small manufacturer cannot undertake the same level of analysis as a multinational corporation. However, it can still identify its most critical supplier relationships, assess exposure to local flood or heat risks, and implement proportionate measures.
Our work at SBS on ESG compliance and carbon reporting increasingly intersects with these physical risk questions. Businesses preparing for regulatory disclosure requirements often discover that they lack the underlying operational data needed to assess climate vulnerability effectively.
Where to find guidance and policy information
UK businesses seeking authoritative guidance on climate adaptation can consult several official sources. The third National Adaptation Programme provides the government's framework for climate resilience from 2023 to 2028.
The Climate Change Committee's 2025 progress report offers an independent assessment of how well the UK is implementing adaptation measures. It includes specific findings on business supply-chain resilience and private-sector action.
The government's response to the CCC report, available through the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, sets out planned actions to address identified gaps. It includes commitments on SME guidance and climate data coordination.
For businesses seeking practical resources, the UK Critical Imports and Supply Chains Strategy provides context on how government is addressing supply-chain vulnerabilities, including those linked to climate change.
Additionally, organisations may benefit from sector-specific guidance available through trade associations and professional bodies. These resources can help translate national adaptation priorities into sector-relevant actions and investment decisions.