Building Business Resilience to Floods and Droughts in Reading

Event Details

  • Date: –

An opportunity to explore the current and future business risks of drought and flooding as they affect Reading and the Thames Valley and how to build resilience into your business. Suitable for businesses of all sectors and sizes, based in and around Reading. Free, but registration essential.

Led by a panel of experts, you will be able to consider what the climate predictions mean for business, how can businesses adapt to them and communicate about them and also address specific experiences and vulnerabilities.

We are very grateful to Mott Macdonald for hosting this event.

Workshop aims:

  • To promote thinking about floods and droughts (size, frequency, business impacts, vulnerabilities) in the same frame in a climate change context.
  • To provide opportunities for businesses to share their own experiences of drought/flood impacts.
  • To collectively evaluate the implications for business adaptation in the South East including Reading.
  • To explore the different evidence to support decisions – science and learning from experience.

Focus and structure: Questions to be addressed in short presentations followed by group discussion, action planning and scenario-ing.

  • What the climate predictions say? What are the implications for risk of flooding and drought in the SE UK?
  • What is the business experience of flooding and drought in Reading and the SE UK?
  • How can businesses adapt to the flood-drought continuum in Reading, SE UK and more generally?
  • How can we communicate effectively about water risk, adaptation and wider water behaviours: communication by businesses and to businesses?
  • What risks do businesses envisage in 10 years’ time?

The workshop will also signpost resources from the NERC1 Drought and Water Scarcity programme; EPSRC2 SESAME project (finding ways of promoting SME adaptation to flood risk) and other business resilience projects.

Contributors:

  • Professor Lindsey McEwen, Centre for Water, Communities and Resilience
  • Dr Jamie Hannaford, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford
  • Chris Beales, Chair of Reading Climate Change Partnership; hydrologist Environmental Agency
  • Professor Len Shaffrey, University of Reading
  • Dr Chris Shaw, Climate Outreach

Book here: https://floodsanddroughtsforbiz.eventbrite.co.uk

 
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1 NERC – UK Natural Environment Research Council
2 EPSRC – UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Council