The best preventative actions that a business can take to safeguard against potential environment related supply chain disruptions are to have a high level of awareness of environmental risks and the capability to respond.
Climate Change Concerns
Many large organisations now see climate change as a major risk with the general consensus being that the risks to business are likely to increase in the future. More frequent weather events are likely to have consequences for supply chains.
The UK is now being directly affected by extreme weather conditions throughout the year. This extreme weather can be seen from events such as the summer floods in England and Northern Ireland of 2007 which cost the UK economy £4 billion.
Just five years later, the UK was hit with hosepipe bans due to the 2012 drought. This ban affected 20 million people. The same year, the UK suffered the wettest summer since 1912, with river levels tripling, and flooding in most regions of England and Wales (Environment Agency, 2013).
In 2010, worldwide economic losses due to natural disasters totalled US$ 194 billion.