Climate preparedness has a communications problem

As the physical effects of climate change increasingly affect business performance, David Willans, Director, Sustainability at Bladonmore, explains why corporate communications must catch up.

Over the past two years, many companies have seen more risk than value in communicating about climate and have pulled back to required disclosures only. But as climate risk increasingly affects business performance, there is an opportunity to capture more value from the work they are already doing to prepare – by explaining what that work involves and what it means for customers, employees, investors, and communities.

Climate risks are crystallizing here and now

This summer, extreme weather was felt across the economy. Extreme heat shut construction sites and hit productivity. British Retail Consortium data shows UK footfall was 2.1% lower year on year as shoppers stayed out of the heat. Freight transport suffered severe disruption as river levels dropped, with Stefan Kooths, professor of economics at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), estimating this could cost German businesses over €1-2bn in Q3 alone. At the time of writing, the area burned by wildfires in Europe in 2026 was more than double the 20-year average for the same period. In the US, year-to-date acreage burned was around 146% of the ten-year average.

While these events may still feel unusual, they are increasingly predictable consequences of rising carbon emissions and a warming climate. The past three years have been the three warmest on record, accompanied by more extreme weather. These patterns are shifting the conversation from whether climate change is happening to how we deal with it.

Global energy-related emissions are growing more slowly, but they still reached a new high in 2025. Even rapid decarbonization will not remove the need to prepare for the impact of more frequent, more extreme weather.

For businesses, the impacts rarely arrive neatly labelled as sustainability issues. They show up as lost operating hours, lower footfall, supply delays, unsafe working conditions, and higher insurance costs. Yet how companies are preparing often remains buried in the technical language of climate risk and sustainability. This is an important gap for corporate communicators to address as preparedness becomes a bigger factor in how customers, employees, and investors choose between businesses.

You can’t value what you don’t know

I have yet to see climate preparedness feature in any mainstream proposition or market-facing communications.

This detail is scattered across various disclosure documents: a TCFD report (or IFRS S2 or ESRS E1 statement), the risk section of the annual report, a climate transition plan, and CDP responses if the company makes them. Much of this content focuses on a company’s emissions rather than its climate resilience. Where preparedness does come up, the information is typically designed for a technical audience and provides only a high-level picture.

This content isn’t designed to answer the questions different stakeholders increasingly have. Can customers rely on continuity of supply? Are critical assets prepared for the next heatwave or flood? How will employees be protected during dangerous weather?

The disclosure documents do their jobs. But as climate increasingly affects operational performance, preparedness becomes a competitive issue too. Disclosure wasn’t designed to turn that preparedness into a compelling reason to choose one business over another.

Talk about what you’ve actually done

In some markets, the political and regulatory environment has made companies more cautious about climate communications. Communicating operational preparedness is different. It means explaining, with evidence, how the business is protecting continuity, employees, assets, and customers. Done well, this can reassure customers, strengthen the equity story, better engage employees, and reinforce a company’s competitive position.

Specificity matters. A sweeping claim that a business is “climate-resilient” wouldn’t pass scrutiny. Evidence that a distribution network has been redesigned to operate more reliably during extreme heat is more useful and more credible. Provided you have done the work to become more resilient, communicating it helps realize more of the value of that investment.

Don’t forget the machines

Ratings providers and investors have used technology to extract information from corporate reports for years. Generative AI is now extending that behavior to journalists, customers, employees, and other stakeholders.

When someone asks AI how well a company is prepared for drought, extreme heat, or disruption to a critical supply route, the quality of the answer depends in part on the information available publicly. If that information is scattered across different documents, inconsistently described and updated infrequently, the answer may not be as strong as it could be.

Tackling this means creating modular, regularly updated content that’s clearly referenced so machines can retrieve and interpret it accurately.

As climate risk increasingly manifests as business risk, companies that have invested in preparedness should communicate it more clearly. Good disclosure remains essential, but it is no longer enough simply to report what has been done. Businesses also need to explain what their resilience means for the people who depend on them.

If you’re thinking about how to communicate climate preparedness more effectively, get in touch.