Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Resilient In a Time of
Climate Chaos
MICHAEL HERRERA
POSTED ON:JANUARY 19, 2023
UPDATED ON:FEBRUARY 16, 2023
The rise in extreme weather has not affected the steps organizations must take to be resilient;
however, it has altered the threat landscape for many, if not most, regions and organizations.
Companies must ensure their threat assessments and plans reflect today’s weird new realities.
Related on MHA Consulting: Risk Assessment: The Best Way to Identify
Your Biggest Threats
One possible answer to this question is, the same things they have been doing,
assuming they had a sound program to begin with.
This might seem odd but it’s nothing other than the truth.
Global climate change and its effects (or, if you prefer to avoid the issue of
causation, the rise in extreme weather events) has not had any effect on the
fundamental principles and requirements of business continuity. It’s still the
case that good BCM requires organizations to assess the threats they face
(human, natural, and technological), identify their most critically time sensitive
business processes, and implement mitigation controls (such as recovery plans)
to reduce their risks and protect their most important processes from the
likeliest and most impactful threats.
Assessing the natural threats facing the organization has been a cornerstone of
BCM all along. It’s always been important for BC professionals to be aware of the
adverse weather that might impact their people, technology, and facilities and to
take steps to mitigate them. By the same token, it’s always been important for
organizations to regularly review and update their threat assessments and
recovery plans.
But of course something important has changed and that’s the weather itself.
Many extreme weather events are increasing in severity (droughts are lasting
longer, wildfires are bigger, hurricanes are stronger). And some regions are
experiencing certain types of extreme weather that never or rarely happened
there before (such as prolonged heat waves).
This means that organizations that are relying on outdated threat assessments—
or threat assumptions—are leaving themselves wide open to unpleasant
surprises.
Organizations have to keep abreast of these changes and make sure their threat
assessments and recovery plans reflect them. Among the items you might want
to address in your plans are how your staff might be impacted and potential
adjustments to relocation or remote work capabilities. What are the operational
impacts of potential changes in the availability of water or an increase in the risk
of flooding, snowfall, or fires? If we look at western wildfires for example, are
remote workers at increased risk due to their locations? Don’t forget about your
vendors and third-party service providers and their plans (or lack thereof).
Organizations should regularly review and update their assessments and plans
to ensure they are prepared for weather-related events that might be different
from or more severe than what they are used to. In gathering information on
weather trends, it’s important to turn to reputable organizations such as local,
county, and state emergency management offices, FEMA, NOAA, and university-
based sources.
Further Reading
For more information on threat and risk assessment, and other hot topics in BC
and IT/disaster recovery, check out these recent posts from MHA Consulting and
BCMMETRICS:
A Sample Threat and Risk Assessment: The Case of Acme Widget Corp.
The Face in the Mirror: The Importance of Truly Knowing Your Own BC Program
Global Turmoil Making You Ill? Try a Dose of Risk Management
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