How can we plan for disasters before they strike? 

Ladeene Freimuth, Joseph Fiksel, Debbra Johnson, Jane Katz, and Peter Williams highlight ARISE-US’ new report that aims to bridge the sustainability-resilience nexus in the era of increasing disaster risks.


Image by pylypchuk | Freepik

As disaster risks increase, there is a clear need to enhance both resilience and sustainability in a more holistic manner to mitigate threats, such as the effects of pandemics, climate change, population growth, ecosystem fragility, and food security. Within the UN system, the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) is responsible for tackling such risks, and it does so by supporting the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. 

While the framework is aimed at preventing new and reducing existing disaster risk through partnerships and all-of-society engagement, UNDRR has also established a global private sector alliance, ARISE, to enhance this public-private collaboration and thereby help achieve its risk prevention and reduction goals.

ARISE-US, a member of the network, recently published their report titled ‘Navigating the Sustainability-Resilience Nexus’, recognising that public, private, and civil society stakeholders must address sustainability and resilience comprehensively to better plan, prepare for, and recover from growing disaster-related risks. The ‘sustainability-nexus’ in this context aims to capture the complex, yet vital, relationship between the two concepts.

Recognising this complexity, the report offers recommendations designed to integrate both concepts more effectively. The following are a few recommendations we believe will enable the private and public sectors to better integrate the concepts and, in turn, manage and reduce risks.

Maps of resilience

For starters, to achieve transformational sustainability and resilience progress, companies and public sector entities should adopt a holistic, system-based approach. Corporations and public entities are encouraged to integrate their sustainability and resilience roles, and to elevate them to the senior leadership level. Doing so would improve cross-functional co-ordination, facilitate comprehensive oversight and accountability for organisational needs and goals, and better align short-term financial goals with those for longer-term sustainability and resilience.

Incorporating sustainability and resilience into organisational risk management and investment decision-making efforts is important to drive innovation and attain co-benefits and opportunities that otherwise might be missed. An example of this is the Starbucks Corporation, which is working with local farmers to attain more innovative, sustainable, and resilient soil and coffee. This includes planting hybrid crops and management practices to mitigate extreme weather-related effects.

Then, companies are encouraged to use forward-looking, rather than strictly historical, data to forecast risk and develop associated management plans. The housing, insurance, and financial sectors are among those adopting such approaches and practices. 

For this, tools, such as ARISE-US’ Coastal Resilience Scorecard, can help companies better integrate sustainability and resilience into their risk management practices. An online Resilience Maturity Assessment (ReMA) tool, developed by UNDRR and a cross-sectoral, global network of Corporate Chief Resilience Officers (CCRO), offers another option to help businesses assess and increase their resilience. 

To mitigate operational and supply chain risks, many companies, including several interviewed for ARISE-US’ report, also have implemented supply chain redundancies and incorporated alternate transportation routes into strategic plans to ensure business continuity and increase their competitive edge.

Next, companies are urged to join or partner with organisations, such as ARISE, to gain expertise and resources, share best practices, and contribute to advancing this field. Similarly, industry associations are encouraged to facilitate their members’ adoption of sustainability and resilience practices by continuing to work with them to develop relevant guidance, metrics, and tools. For instance, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has recognised that resilient design is crucial for establishing secure, healthy, and sustainable communities. Thus, it is providing strategic tools and resources, such as its ‘2030 Palette’ and certificate programmes, to help designers, planners, builders, and communities achieve this goal.

The US electricity sector, with its major trade associations, provides a model public-private partnership that works across multiple federal agencies to prevent and respond to disasters. Their best practices have proven so successful that they now extend beyond this sector, such as pre-positioning essential vehicles, crews, and critical resources out of harm’s way prior to a major storm to expedite response capabilities.

Signals before storms

In the report, communities are also strongly encouraged to deploy early warning systems (EWS). EWSs that have adaptive capabilities will ensure they are accessible to those facing a range of disabilities and will benefit everyone. These are among the most cost-effective ways to save tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, according to a 2023 UNDRR Global Survey on Persons with Disabilities and Disasters. Communities should engage disabled people to a much greater extent in disaster risk reduction decision-making processes, given that 85 per cent of this population currently do not participate in them.

Aside from EWSs, communities also are urged – from the conceptual and pre-planning stages – to prioritise nature-based solutions, use green building design principles and technologies, and adopt the most recent building codes and standards that exceed minimum requirements. They must not only build back better following a disaster, but also build forward better to reflect anticipated conditions.

Local and national financial incentives and targets are recommended to help companies and individuals deploy clean, efficient stationary and mobile technologies, such as smart energy management systems, solar arrays, and battery energy storage systems. Electric vehicles (EV), particularly electric school buses that have long idle times and predictable schedules, can be used as mobile batteries to provide power to critical facilities during power outages, and thereby enhance resilience, when paired with compatible EV chargers and equipped with bidirectional charging capabilities. Deploying these types of technologies, aided by incentives, grants, and rebates to help lower up-front costs, will help achieve sustainability and resilience goals.

Finally, it can be said that global governance frameworks are evolving to leverage the important potential of this nexus, particularly the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the Sendai Framework, and the New Urban Agenda. The respective UN bodies overseeing these mechanisms are strategically aligning their agendas, policies, and priorities to improve co-ordination and advance collective sustainability, resilience, climate, and development planning and implementation efforts, along with those of countries, municipalities, companies, and civil society.

These types of recommendations, tools, and resources can facilitate a more comprehensive approach to reducing disaster risks, and enhancing sustainability and resilience, to drive more effective and lasting solutions for corporations, civil society, communities, and their built environments. 

Ladeene Freimuth is the Founder and President of The Freimuth Group, LLC, a global energy and environmental consulting firm, and worked in the US Congress.

Joseph Fiksel, PhD is an expert in enterprise risk management and supply chain sustainability and resilience, a Visiting Scholar at George Washington University’s Environmental and Energy Management Institute, US, and Professor Emeritus at The Ohio State University, US.

Debbra Johnson is a Resilience and Sustainability Advisor, Trainer, and Advocate, the Founder of her consulting firm, Debbra AK Johnson, LLC, and the Co-Founder and Director Emeritus of ARISE-U.S.

Jane Katz, an expert in housing and urban policy, serves as the Board Vice Chair and Washington, DC Coordinator for Global Urban Development (GUD), and an urban and housing advisor to the United Nations and other global organisations, including as the Co-Chair for Civil Society Organisations for the UN Habitat’s World Urban Campaign Steering Committee.    

Peter Williams, PhD is a consultant on corporate climate risk issues, Co-Leader of ARISE-US, and the former Chief Technology Officer of IBM's ‘Big Green Innovations’ incubator.