Building climate change resilience in cities - The private sector's role

Sustainability

Building climate change resilience in cities - The private sector's role

Carolyn Whelan

Senior editor, Americas

Carolyn is a senior editor for The Economist Intelligence Unit's thought leadership division in the Americas. She manages research programs for foundations and corporations on topics ranging from urbanization and jobs to sustainability and youth economic prospects. She has over 20 years’ experience in journalism. Until 2013 Carolyn contributed articles to Fortune, Newsweek, the IHT and SciAm.com about urbanization, infrastructure, trade, technology and transportation, among other topics. She has also written materials for Ernst & Young, Columbia Business School and the United Nations. Earlier Carolyn covered the technology and healthcare beats for Barron’s Online and Dow Jones Newswires in Paris, respectively. She broke into journalism covering the 1992 Earth Summit and subsequently worked for the World Wildlife Fund in Switzerland. Ms. Whelan holds a B.A. in Communications from the University of Virginia and is a 2006 Columbia Business School Knight-Bagehot Fellow. She is Swiss and American, and speaks fluent French and Spanish.

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Key findings:

Non-climate risks keep executives up at night. They worry most about pressure on urban infrastructure from overcrowding, civil unrest and political instability.
Increased competitiveness, improved employee health, greater productivity and lower absenteeism and cost savings are primary drivers for corporate investment in climate resilience building, followed by one’s corporate reputation.
The private sector still sees government shouldering the lion’s share of the burden for the breakdown of essential services from climate change impacts. But this is changing: 90% of executives acknowledge industry’s role in resilience-building
Business seeks partnerships with government and civil society to expand its participation in urban resilience building.

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Building climate change resilience in cities - The private sector's role

Sustainability

Building climate change resilience in cities - The private sector's role

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