A leading resilience expert has said businesses have to plan for the future and that suppliers all too often are the businesses biggest risks.

Andrew Forsyth, head of Climate & Sustainability Zurich Resilience Solutions UK, was speaking to Emerging Risks on how his operations consults with its clients to identify current and future risks.

He warned businesses cannot afford to adopt a short term view in the questions if resilience adding the investment now will yield huge rewards in the future.

“When it comes to increasing climate resilience we need to get people into a longer term mindset,” he said. ”We need to get clients asking what ae the threats and what are we doing about it. It is a case of looking to the longer term and understanding the future impact if climate change and what needs to be done to build resilience.”

He added: “It is something that needs it be done ahead of the insurance conversations. It is a case of ‘if I know about the issue now what am I doing about it?’

“Clients are increasingly recognising the issues and looking at how they can meet the challenges. It cannot be done in isolations. It cannot simply be the responsibility of the risk managers. There is not inly the physical risks that need to be addressed but also the health and safety of staff which may face extreme temperatures or weather events.

“It needs to be a joined up approach, with risk managers, finance, legal, operations, and the HR departments.”

Forsyth continued: “As a business we are very much risk agnostic. We are happy to engage with the area of the business which has responsibility for the specific areas of resilience.

“It really is a case of what does it mean for the risk and what is the opportunity.”

However, he said that the longer term view which will be required to deliver the necessary resilience is a harder sell for companies.

“You may work to understand what the risks will be in 2040,” he explained. “However it can be a difficult conversation to have, in terms of asking for the finance required to build resilience for which you will recoup the benefits in the years to come.

“The CFO may well say in 2040 I will be on the beach. The fact is those investments will yield more if done now.”

“We need to fully understand what the climate data is telling us.”

In terms of the key themes that risk managers are focused on at present one is the ongoing threats to the global supply chain.

“There are concerns over suppliers within the value chain and just how exposed they may well be to the threats that clients are looking to address within their own organisations,” said Forsyth. “We ask our clients to identify the top 10 at risk to the business and its suppliers. It is far more likely it is a supplier which will provide the company’s biggest risks.

“Reputationally it can be a significant issue.”