Dedicated to creating a sustainable future through
environmental skills, knowledge and thought leadership
Monday 3rd June 2013
Environment Professionals Urged to Make the Business Case
for Adapting to Climate Change
New guidance launched this week aims to empower environmental
staff to “future-proof” their businesses
UK environment and sustainability professionals can now access specific information to help them
develop a thorough business case and secure senior management buy-in for addressing climate risks
following the release of new guidance by the Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment
(IEMA) and the Environment Agency.
As organisations across the economy increasingly face resource and supply chain issues, as well as the effects
of severe weather, the release of this guidance aims to support environment and sustainability professionals to
provide leadership around managing risks from a changing climate in a way that addresses key business
concerns.
Produced by IEMA with support from the Environment Agency’s Climate Ready Team, the Climate Change
Adaptation: Building the Business Case guidance was developed as part of a Defra-funded project established to
help businesses address the limitations, challenges, risks and opportunities presented by the changing climate.
The fourteen-page guidance document provides insightful learning points from practice (over 300 IEMA
members contributed their experiences to shape the guidance) and useful recommendations. It directs
environment and sustainability professionals through the framework, terminology and principles necessary to
build successful business cases. Top tips offered by practitioners that have been published as part of the
guidance include:
 Understand your business – an essential starting point
 Engage widely across your business – build awareness, seek interest and share the challenge and
use business-relevant language
 Don’t reinvent the wheel but do use existing decision-making opportunities
 ‘Piggy back’ opportunities onto other projects and developments
 Use recent and future weather impacts as an early opportunity for business response (can also
help in building awareness for longer term climate change adaptation)
 Additional to risk, consider opportunities and dependencies, including any competitive advantage
from increased resilience to extreme weather and climate
 Look for ‘early mover’ opportunities and do not under estimate the value of making a start e.g.
through trial schemes or adaptation linked to wider initiatives
IEMA’s Nick Blyth, Policy and Practice Lead on climate change issues at IEMA who authored and co-ordinated
the project says: “Climate change adaptation is starting to feature across multiple business processes, from risk
registers and organisational management systems, supply chains and procurement, through to sales, service delivery and
even product design. Environment and sustainability professionals are instrumental, helping organisations to understand
and address varied climate change risks and opportunities. Our guidance has been directly informed by practitioners
and will be an essential guide to others as they develop approaches to build resilient and sustainable organisations.”
This collaborative project ultimately aims to empower environment and sustainability professionals to lead the
way in future-proofing their organisations by putting forward suitable and successful business cases which
achieve cross-organisational support.
Kylie Russell, Business Resilience Lead for the Environment Agency’s Climate Ready service said of the
guidance project: “Many of the businesses we speak with highlight the importance of developing a robust business
case for acting on climate risks. This guide is a valuable tool to help sustainability managers with this process and we
were pleased to work with IEMA on its development. The impacts that severe weather has had in recent years
underlines that addressing climate risks is a critical issue to securing resilience and long-term competiveness. Harnessing
organisational support for action through a strong business case is a good place to start”
The guidance document is available to all practitioners and organisations as a free download from
www.iema.net/readingroom/articles/cca-business-case-guidance.
Notes to Editors
For further information please contact:
IEMA - Katrina Pierce – 01522 540069 – k.pierce@iema.net
Environment Agency Press Office - 0207 863 8744 – NationalPressOfficeTeam@environment-agency.gov.uk
IEMA
The Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment (IEMA) is the UK’s leading environmental professional
association. IEMA is dedicated to creating a sustainable future through environmental skills, knowledge and thought
leadership.
IEMA is an independent and international, not for profit membership organisation that represents the views of 15,000
environmental professionals.
IEMA delivers the following services:
Policy and Legislation – IEMA frequently contributes to the development of key areas of UK policy and legislation.
Recent contributions include:
 The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee inquiries in to green jobs and skills and climate change
adaptation. In the response IEMA recommended that the notion of ‘green jobs and skills’ is not soley a matter for the
environmental goods and service sector, but that mainstreaming environmental knowledge into all sectors of the
economy is an essential pre-requisite to catalyzing low-carbon and resource efficient activity in business.
 The Department of Energy and Climate Change’s (DECC’s) consultations on proposed national policy statements
on energy, carbon budgets and Guidance on Carbon Neutrality.
 The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on the development of guidance for the
measurement and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, a requirement under the Climate Change Act 2008.
Professional development, training and qualifications – IEMA sets the standard for the development of
environmental skills and knowledge, ensuring that environmental professionals are equipped to make a difference as
sustainability becomes a key business driver.
 IEMA Skills Map / Competency Framework
As the leading body for anyone working in the environmental or sustainability profession, IEMA considers it essential
that the knowledge and skills that individuals with environmental responsibility require are clearly set out. Feedback
from business, employers and individual members confirms that until now there has not been a clear career or
development path for the environmental profession and in particular, for those new to the profession who need more
direction. The development of IEMA’s skills map / competency framework for the environmental profession will
address this need.
For the first time, IEMA has set out a cross sector competency framework to support:
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Anyone planning their own personal professional development;
Employers recruiting environmental professionals or preparing job descriptions;
Recruitment agencies advising on recruitment of an environmental professional;
HR or Department Heads developing a graduate or management development programmes; and
Organisations supporting the development and delivery of environmental or sustainability knowledge and skills.
The framework brings together several years of work, undertaken by IEMA, in the environmental and sustainability
skills area. A key factor of this work is recognition that individuals do require sound environmental knowledge,
supported by leadership and management skills in order to apply their environmental knowledge effectively.
 IEMA’s training courses and continuous professional development provision cover a range of subjects from
resource efficiency to environmental management, auditing, carbon reduction and procurement, spanning many levels
from diploma to foundation course, tailored courses for senior executives and for those at the top of their profession,
including Chartered Environmentalist. IEMA provides opportunities for members to share best practice and develop
their knowledge by hosting events and discussions.
Central source of information – IEMA acts as a central source of information providing events, publications and
knowledge sharing. These activities include:
 The Environmentalist - the monthly professional magazine that is the resource guide for environmental
professionals across the UK and internationally. With a growing circulation of nearly 15,000 the publication covers the
latest research, technical news, policy updates, legislation, practical tools and skills updates.
 Events and conferences including 3 national events and over 100 regional workshops for environmental
practitioners across the UK.
Go to www.iema.net to find out more.