Understand your business’s climate change risks and how to address them
The evidence of climate change is growing increasingly hard to ignore. Each year, stories of record-breaking temperatures, heatwaves, forest fires, floods, and droughts dominate news headlines around the world. While it is challenging to attribute climate change to any single event, climate change is increasing the occurrence and severity of extreme weather events. The impacts of an increasingly warming world are being felt locally, with consequences that can reverberate across the globalized economy. Understanding the urgency of the climate crisis, governments and businesses around the world have responded by committing to reducing their GHG emissions, with commitments to achieve net-zero by 2050 or sooner.
Partners in Project Green’s Building a Climate Resilient Business Resource Kit is designed to help businesses across the Greater Toronto Area with:
- Understanding their climate change risks
- Determining how to evaluate and prioritize these risks
- Learning about potential strategies to address them
Through providing an overview of global and local climate change impacts, readers will be able to better grasp the implications of climate change in their communities and what it means for their business. The main goal of this resource kit is to provide local context for climate change risks in the GTA and support businesses as they prepare for them.
The Resource Kit consists of several modules to provide optimal business support including:
- Summary reports from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which provide background information for this Resource Kit
- Primers on climate change science and projections for the Toronto Area
- Overviews of Impacts of climate change on human health, buildings and infrastructure, agriculture and food security, supply chain, and finance and regulations
- Mitigation strategies to reduce GHG emissions
- Support on climate change Adaptation, including an overview of the climate change risk assessment process and potential adaptation strategies
- Case Studies from organizations taking action on adaptation and enhancing their resiliency
Resource Kit Contents
Background – IPCC Summary Reports
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report series below highlights a strong business case for climate action by businesses. Climate-resilient development is an approach to climate action that combines mitigation with adaptation and an excellent opportunity for businesses to make an impact.
- The Business Case for Climate Action
- The Business Case for Climate Action - Proactive vs. Reactive
- The Business Case for Climate Action – Toward and Equitable, Engaged and Clean Energy Future
- A Call to Action: The IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report
Primers
- Climate Change is a Business Risk
- An Overview of Global Climate Change
- How do Scientists Project Climate Futures?
- Changes in Temperature in the Toronto Region over the 21st Century
- Changes in Precipitation in Toronto Region over the 21st Century
- Growing Season and Agriculture
- ESG Reporting Structures
Impacts
- Human Health
- Buildings and Infrastructure
- Agriculture and Food Security
- Supply Chain Impacts
- Financial and Regulatory Impacts
Mitigation
- Energy Efficiency and Conservation
- Fuel Switching
- Heat Recovery
- Carbon Capture, Utilization and Sequestration/Storage
- Low Carbon Transportation
- Behaviour Change
Adaptation
- Risk Identification
- Risk Analysis
- Risk Evaluation and Prioritization
- Implementation of Risk Interventions
- Monitoring and Review
Case Studies
- Algood Caster Innovations – Fuel Switching for the Environment and Employee Well-Being
- Toronto Pearson – “A Small City” – Scale Stormwater Management and Energy Storage
- Handi Foods – Expanding and Diversifying Supply Chain, Storage and Packaging
- Enviro-Stewards – Affordable Smart Blue Roof at Head Office
- Calstone Inc. – Stormwater Source Control Practices
- Metrolinx – Mainstreaming Climate Risk Assessment
- IMAX & Credit Valley Conservation – Stormwater Management Innovation
- Credit Valley Conservation – Portico Community Church Parking Lot Retrofit
About the Authors
Toronto and Region Conservation Authority’s Partners in Project Green (PPG) program is valued in the industrial, commercial, and institutional community as a trusted advisor on environmentally friendly best practices in the GTA. PPG’s position as a reliable liaison between the conservation community and the private sector presents a unique opportunity to provide information to businesses on the current state of climate change issues in the GTA, raise awareness of the multiple benefits of climate change risk assessments, and support the business case for companies to act, which will improve climate change resiliency not only for the participating company, but the surrounding community as well.
Thank you to the climate and business experts who provided input into these resources:
