Impact of Climate Change on Businesses and Suggestions for Reducing Carbon Footprint

This report evaluates the impact of climate change on businesses across the globe and includes recommendations for reducing their carbon footprint. It discusses the ways in which climate change can be problematic for businesses and suggests ways to reduce carbon footprint.

Individual Report

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................1
Ways in which climate change can be problematic for business...........................................1
Suggestion for reducing carbon footprint...............................................................................2
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Talking in relation with the climate change, it is not just the issue concerning to
environment rather the climate is indistinguishably connected with nearly each and every
thing being done as a community. It has a severe influence on the businesses and the
companies across the globe and will continue to have even more impact while moving
forward. Pertaining to this, the main aim of the current research report is to evaluate the
impact of climate change on the business across the globe using appropriate examples and
will include recommendations for the steps to be executed for reducing their carbon footprint.
MAIN BODY
Ways in which climate change can be problematic for business
According to Geels and et.al (2017), climate change is being defined as a long-term
shift in weather patterns as well as temperatures. This transition might be natural like, by
variation in the solar cycle. However, activities of human have been regarded as the main
driver of change in climate. This is fundamentally because of the burning of fossil fuels such
as gas, oil and coal. Due to the burning of fossil fuels, there is an emission of greenhouse gas
which act as a blanket wrapped across the earth that traps the heat of the sun and increases the
temperatures. As per Spierling (2018), some of the illustrations of greenhouse gas emissions
which are resulting alteration in the climate encompasses methane and carbon dioxide. These
gases came from making use of gasoline for driving car or coal for heating a building.
Additionally, clearing for forests and land also emits carbon dioxide. There are many
industries such as transport, energy, agriculture and buildings who are considered as the
prime emitters of methane emissions.
According to Aall, Hall and Groven (2016), alteration in the climate conditions is
quite problematic for many businesses and industries and the very first industry who has been
hit hard by climate change is the agricultural industry. Considering the example of Cargill
which is one of the leading agricultural companies of the world faces different issues due to
warmer temperatures. Due to rise in the temperatures, different high producing agricultural
areas feels a squeeze. Even though warmer temperatures can support in the growth of the
crops very fast, however for many crops such as grains, the faster the growth the less time
seeds will take to mature and this decreases the worldwide yield. Because of this, the
company is forced to increase the prices which automatically augments the food prices. Other
than this, insurance sector has also been hard by the climate change. Because of the
escalating frequency along with severity of the extreme weather-related events such as
1

wildfires in the United States and record heat waves in Europe and floods in Japan, there has
been brighter supervisory limelight on the insurance risk as well as climate change (Signorini,
2017). Companies such as UnitedHealth Group, AXa and Berkshire Hathaway has been
facing financial crisis. There has been rise in the pay-outs and premiums which is impacting
the sales of the insurance products. Thus, it can be said that these companies have been
affected hard by the climate change and the risks can be grouped into three categories such as
physical, liability and transitional risks.
Suggestion for reducing carbon footprint
Carbon footprint is defined as a measure of the total degree of greenhouse gases
released into the atmospheres due to the activities of the country, individual and the
organizations. It is important that each and every business across the world should make an
important effort for reducing the carbon footprint. Companies should make a fight for the
climate change and this should be the main goal in the coming decades for them. Firstly, it is
crucial for the companies that they must invest more towards developing energy efficient
equipment along with the services for keeping their products in operations for enduring
period of time. They must reduce the use of plastic bags in packaging and must utilize recycle
and reusable materials (Ho and et.al., 2019). In addition to this, it also important that the firm
should make investment towards green energy as well as green office equipment for reducing
the carbon footprint of their businesses. It is important that the firms should invest in
renewable energy source such as solar panels, which are being regarded as the most useful
option.
Moving further, it is also suggested to the businesses to plant more and more trees and
must have a staff garden. This is the essential method for boosting the well-being of the
workers and offsetting the carbon emission of the firm. Implementation and application of the
principle if three R’s that is reduced, reused and recycled will help the firms in becoming
environmentally friendly. Other than this, it is also crucial that the businesses should talk and
communicate with their workers for making sure that all the evaluation along with planning is
being performed for making the firm go greener. Workers are the main component for
succeeding in this challenging time, however they are required to be informed. Consequently,
it can be said that right from the energy supply to recycling from transportation to
manufacturing, all these firms should be motivated to create strategies that emphasize on the
ways of making the businesses more environmentally sustainable (Dietz and et.al., 2016).
Other than this, it is also vital that the firms should emphasize on taking practical steps for
2

making improvement in the performance. through these steps, companies will be able to take
practical steps for minimizing their footprint in both short as well as long terms through
controlling emissions to land, water and air and make effective utilization of resources by
innovation for meeting this climate change issue.
CONCLUSION
From the above evaluation, it can be concluded that climate change is being regarded
as one of the most pressing issues of the world. almost each and every sector have been
affected by the global warming mainly because of the carbon dioxide emissions from fossil
fuels. Thus, it is important that businesses should take certain steps for reducing carbon
footprint such as investing more towards developing energy efficient equipment, using the
principle of three R’s such as reuse, recycle and reduce and so forth.
3

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Aall, C., Hall, M.C. and Groven, K., 2016. Tourism: Applying rebound theories and
mechanisms to climate change mitigation and adaptation. London: Springer.
Dietz, S., Bowen, A., Dixon, C. and Gradwell, P., 2016. Climate value at risk’ of global
financial assets. National Climate Change. 6. pp.676–679.
Geels, F.W., Sovacool, B.K., Schwanen, T. and Sorrell, S., 2017. Sociotechnical transitions
for deep decarbonization. Science. 357. pp.1242–1244.
Ho, E., Budescu, D.V, Bosetti, V., Van Vuuren, D.P. and Keller, K., 2019. Climate Change.
155. pp.545–561.
Signorini, L.F., 2017. The Financial System, Environment and Climate: A Regulator’s
Perspective. (Bank of Italy).
Spierling, S., 2018. Bio-based plastics—a review of environmental, social and economic
impact assessments. Journal of Cleaner Production.185. pp.476–491.
4