Resilience Is Now a Key KPI in Our Tumultuous World

In an era that continues to be shaped by a
polycrisis
that includes climate change, political and economic instability,
social upheaval, growing resource scarcity and technological
disruption — the ability to adapt and thrive in the face of these compounded
challenges is essential for both individuals and businesses.

In response to these challenges, leaders in the global sustainability
movement are beginning to recognize the need to focus on designing for what
author Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls
“antifragility” — which
describes systems whose health increases as a result of stressors, shocks,
volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks or failures.

At Sustainable Brands®, we see examples of designing for resilience through
adaptation and regeneration being applied in many areas — with examples emerging
of future-proof models for communities, businesses, ecosystems, technologies and
more. Here are just a few examples of initiatives that have us excited about the
growing resilience movement:

Bringing the insurance industry into the 21st century

Helping the industry move toward its goal of avoiding risk — not through
bluelining or
(however inadvertently) underwriting the climate
crisis,
but by shifting the model toward incentivizing disaster-preparedness and other
proactive approaches to safeguarding assets. Forward-thinking companies such as
Premiums for the Planet are showing how
the insurance industry’s long-range look at risk can be used as a lens to help
companies plan for disruptive, external events.

Dispersing cutting-edge planning tools and resources

A collaboration between AT&T, FEMA and the US Department of Energy’s
Argonne National Laboratory, the Climate Risk and Resilience Portal
(ClimRR) uses climate-science modeling to give
state, local, tribal and territorial emergency managers, and community leaders
free access to localized data about future climate risks that can be used to
shape planning, adaptation and resilience strategies.

Embracing age-old, holistic approaches to stewarding nature

Ever since COP15
in 2022, we’ve seen an explosion of corporate and government strategies to
halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.
While many
companies
and
cities
are looking to science-based targets for
nature
and collaborations such as the Nature Positive
Initiative
and Business for
Nature
for guidance, others — including the American Sustainable Business
Network and the city of Fort Collins,
Colorado
— are showing what’s possible when we re-embrace holistic principles learned
from Indigenous populations, the original experts in working in harmony with
nature.

Future-proofing cities and buildings

More intentional planning and design and increased understanding of the
importance of better materials and systems are beginning to help address the
carbon footprint of cities (which the World Bank estimates are responsible
for 70 percent of global CO2
emissions
— thanks to a polluting combination of industrial and motorized transport
systems and far-flung infrastructure, constructed with carbon-intensive
materials) while increasing the quality of life for city residents.

While some are still theoretical, we’re seeing a host of innovative,
systems-level plans for redesigning existing cities to be more inclusive, safe,
resilient, and
sustainable:
Approaches include making city centers more walkable by reducing our
dependence on
cars;
and increasing green space and “tree
equity”
through inclusion of more public
parks
and play
spaces,
to improve air quality and community health and wellbeing of inner-city
communities and help temper the causes and
consequences
of excessive urban heat. Proposed circular strategies for optimizing
both the built environment and
biodiversity
within major cities will increase climate resilience and unlock hundreds of billions
of potential revenue across the built environment value chain; and planned
community models such as
Geoship
and Florida’s Babcock Ranch, literally
built to weather any
storm,
provide inspiration for building better from the ground up.

On the construction front, an explosion in next-generation materials and
processes are changing how we manufacture ubiquitous, heavy-emitting
materials such as
steel
and
concrete
— which are reducing embodied
carbon
in buildings, along with carbon in the atmosphere; and forward-thinking designs
enable buildings — such as Interface’s
factories,
Microsoft’s data centers
or Aspen Vodka’s Colorado
distillery
— to capture and store more energy than they use and work in harmony with the
surrounding
environment,
even improving the quality of natural resources such as water.

Nearshoring supply chains

More and more companies are bringing their suppliers closer to
home,
which helps reduce everything from emissions and
costs
(shorter distances equals fewer transport miles) to waste (it enables
smaller production runs) and risk of disruption from unforeseen events (ex:
the
pandemic,
extreme-weather
events,
geopolitical
conflicts).

Increasing resilience of agricultural commodities

A lot of work on this front can be seen in the proliferation of regenerative
practices
now being used to grow the crops behind some of our most common
foods,
beverages
and
textiles;
but other exciting advancements can be seen in the development and discovery of
new varieties of climate-challenged crops — including
coffee
and
cacao.

Optimizing material and resource use

We continue to be delighted and inspired by the growing circular
economy — as
more innovators extend the life of products through better
design
and
repairability;
help consumers adopt waste-saving habits by scaling use of
reusables;
turn carbon pollution into everything from
chemicals,
fuels
and
plastic
to
spirits
and
textiles;
and use physical waste streams to create better
packaging,
extend the shelf life of
produce,
develop climate-proof
alternatives
to our favorite treats, and produce clean
energy.

‘Teaching a man to fish’

A growing number of organizations are moving beyond philanthropy and
bolstering the resilience of human capital by expanding access to
educational,
employment,
financial,
digital,
skills-development,
financial-literacy,
mental
health
and other
enrichment
opportunities and resources for underserved communities including
women,
people of
color,
refugees,
differently
abled,
unhoused
and formerly
incarcerated
people — creating deeper, longer-lasting impacts on people’s lives.

Turning tourism into a force for good

After business ground to a halt during the pandemic, many tour operators and
other stakeholders began to rethink their
approach
to this lucrative industry that can take a massive social and environmental
toll on destinations. With everything from decarbonized
tours,
alternative accommodation
platforms
and tourism
pledges
to increasing “impact tourism” through environmental
preservation
and
rewilding
initiatives, opportunities to engage with and learn from local
communities,
and ensuring tourism revenues go to local
businesses
— it’s easy to find more conscious, even regenerative approaches to travel
that enrich the communities and landscapes of destinations, as well as
travelers’ experiences.

Join us in October at SB’24 San Diego for the inaugural SB Resilience
Summit
(October 17) — where we’ll hear from AT&T, JLL, Premiums for the
Planet and more business leaders preparing their organizations for adaptation
and resilience in a tumultuous world. The summit will feature data-informed,
strategic discussions on proactive measures organizations can take now to
navigate uncertainty, mitigate risk, ensure continuity and future-proof their
business for tomorrow’s challenges today. Learn more here!