Caring About Climate Resilience Is Cool Now (Literally)

Climate volatility is now affecting businesses at every layer. When the ground beside an airplane can reach 122 degrees Fahrenheit and railways struggle in 113-degree summers, building resilience with climate planning and adaptation is no longer optional. Speakers at Newsweek 's Pillars of Stability event told the assembled audience that climate resilience needs to be written into every layer of operations if businesses are to be prepared for the future.

Europe’s extreme summer was “quite a wake-up call,” Julie Kitcher, chief sustainability and communications officer at Airbus, told Newsweek . Every industry is now facing the consequences. Read More on Sustainability Bob Holycross, chief sustainability, environment and safety officer at Ford, told Newsweek that the supply chain is particularly vulnerable. It is “the most complex because of how deep it goes into all the parts and components and raw materials that go into manufacturing,” he said.

To help mitigate impact, Ford pushes suppliers to spread out where they source materials and make parts. The aim is to make the supply chain less “vulnerable to shocks and supply disruptions,”he explained. Airbus faces similar pressures, emphasizing the importance of adequate planning to maintain quality and service to customers. With more than 18,000 suppliers, “building resilience into the supply chain is imperative,” Kitcher said. The global spread of Airbus’ sites also means that each requires its own “resilience and climate adaptation plan.”

The challenges extend to employee health and safety, too. At times, ground temperatures next to an aircraft are between 40 and 50 degrees Celsius, Kitcher said. “Obviously that requires adaptation.” When climate volatility reaches across the business, the solution requires a similar approach. For Holycorss, this means “it’s embedded within our product strategy team, our manufacturing team, supply chain team. It’s embedded in all parts of the organization, just like quality.”

Resilience planning also benefits customers. Mastercard’s payment network relies on tech hubs and undersea cables that extreme weather can disrupt. The company has built weather stations on its offices and data centers to track heat, rain and wind in real time and be better prepared, Ellen Jackowski, Mastercard’s chief sustainability officer, told Newsweek . Similarly, Autodesk’s software helps builders test buildings against floods and extreme heat.

The goal is to create something that “maintains its value and continues to perform while the world around it changes,” Joe Speicher, chief sustainability officer at Autodesk, told Newsweek . Some of these measures are already paying off. Holycross said they made sense for Ford partly “because it’s going to save us a ton of money.” It's the same for Airbus. Each new generation of aircraft burns 25% to 35% less fuel, which is a direct cost cut for airlines.

But it’s still only a start. For aviation, the next hurdle is cleaner fuel, made from waste oil and plant materials, and costing at least twice as much as regular jet fuel. This “green premium” is the challenge now facing the aviation industry, and Kitcher says that solving it “is going to require really collective action” across the entire industry. One thing’s for sure: Climate volatility is everyone’s problem now, and building resilience is therefore everyone’s responsibility.