Climate Crisis Business Continuity Plan

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to improve their climate literacy so as to understand the projected impacts from the expanding climate crisis and how to adapt their workplaces in the face of these impacts.

A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is defined as follows:

“The process involved in creating a system of prevention and recovery from potential threats to a company. The plan ensures that personnel and assets are protected and are able to function quickly in the event of a disaster. The BCP is generally conceived in advance and involves input from key stakeholders and personnel.”

Then next decade (2020 > 2030) is going to see intense pressure and a moral obligation for business to decouple its operations from fossil fuels. What is your BCP to cope with this reality?

The extent to which you business relies on fossil fuels for its daily operations is the extent to which you will face disruption to your business continuity. Looking at the current brake down of emissions is a good place to start the conversation because the areas with the largest emissions are going to see the largest scrutiny and legislation to reduce radically and if possible eliminate altogether.

Take a look at this graphic: Where are the fossil fuel touch points for your business?

It’s clear that for almost all businesses electricity, heating and transportation are given touch points. What is your plan to mitigate the risks associated with your reliance on these two areas for daily operations?

For example, do you have a plan in place to switch from coal or oil provided electricity and heat to renewable solar or wind energy? This may mean ensuring that the building is converted to clean energy by installing a solar system. Of course, if the utility provider has already switched to clean energy this cost would be unnecessary.

What about transportation? If you have a fleet of motor vehicles or you require you staff to commute into work everyday how can you break your reliance on the internal combustion engine? Do you have plans in place to switch your fleet to electric vehicles? Can staff arrive at work using clean energy? What about business air travel? Can you dramatically reduce the number of flights necessary for meetings and events?

With both these examples (buildings & transportation) there is another way to end reliance on them for daily operations, by using existing technology. How? Design a digital workplace that in essence creates an “office in the cloud.” With the right design and the necessary skills to work in such an environment almost all knowledge work can be done virtually from anywhere.

An “office in the cloud” means that your business does not need a physical office building. Staff do not need to commute to and from that office as they log into work from anywhere.

There are many companies that are already working this way. Automattic, GitLab and InVision are just a few examples.

Organizations that are able to right now evolve their operations to this way of working and in the process break their reliance on fossil fuels will flourish in the light of the looming legislation to curb emissions.

(If you want to begin conversation about designing a digital workplace or ensuring that your team has the necessary virtual work skills to work in such an environment do reach out to us at team @ futureworkiq .com)