KPMG is a global network of auditors and business consultants operating in 145 countries. According to the new Climate Changes Your Business report from them, six industries in particular have to watch out because they are not sufficiently aware of and ready to manage the risks of global warming. The winners (or potential losers) are: aviation, healthcare, oil and gas, tourism, transport, and the financial services sectors. See this article from "BusinessGreen."
Timothy Flynn, Chairman of KPMG International says that companies need to assess the direct implications of climate change to their businesses (extreme weather, etc.) and take corrective action, consider how indirect effects such as regulatory changes will effect them, and seek to benefit from opportunities such as the growing demand for energy-efficient technologies. (I really do love that word: opportunity.) Their CSR chief, Lord Michael Hastings, says "I am convinced that companies that take the initiative to improve their carbon footprint will innovate for the better , for their own prosperity and the world as whole." Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, says "Smart companies take action."
On opportunity, I recently cited an "FT" article, Energy efficiency: Use less power to cut emissions, in which we learned the arresting news that "Dow Chemical claims to have reduced its energy intensity by 38 per cent between 1990 to 2005. The group invested $1bn to meet this target but says the initiatives have resulted in $5bn of savings." Get it?!
I have also mentioned two reports from Lehman Brothers on the Business of Climate Change which prefigure much in the KPMG report, namely the risks and the opportunities.