Podcast

Podcast

Business and policy leaders join Harvard Business School faculty to discuss what businesses are doing, can do, and should do to confront climate change.
  • 24 Apr 2024
  • Climate Rising

Helping Companies Become More Climate Resilient

In this episode in our adaptation series, Peter Hall, Managing Director at Resonance Impact Advisory, draws upon his experience in global engineering and professional services firms to share how consulting and advisory companies can help their clients assess their risks and take actions to become more resilient to climate change. He walks through several adaptation frameworks and roadmaps recently developed by governments, civil society, and private companies to help provide clarity and guidance on the steps necessary for more resilient companies and societies. For notes and resources visit; climaterising.org

Resources


Guests

Climate Rising Host: Professor Mike Toffel, Faculty Chair, Business & Environment Initiative (LinkedIn)

Guest: Peter Hall, Managing Director, Resonance Impact Advisory (LinkedIn)


Transcript



Editor’s Note: The following was prepared by a machine algorithm, and may not perfectly reflect the audio file of the interview.

Mike Toffel:

This is Climate Rising, a podcast from Harvard Business School. And I'm your host, Mike Toffel, a professor here at HBS. Today's episode is another in our series on climate adaptation. In this episode, I'm joined by Peter Hall, Managing Director at Resonance Impact Advisory. I'll ask him to discuss his consulting and advisory work for companies to help them identify risks and opportunities associated with physical changes to the climate including heat and drought, and to develop plans to address them. And we'll discuss how companies are collaborating on resilience efforts with their global supply chain partners, donor agencies, NGOs, and governments. I'll also ask Peter to share his perspective on what he sees as the most promising opportunities and companies working at the cutting edge of climate adaptation and resilience. Here's my interview with Peter Hall from Resonance Impact Advisory. Peter, thank you so much for joining us here on Climate Rising.

Peter Hall:

Mike. It's great to be here.

Mike Toffel:

So let's begin just with a brief overview of your role and how you got there.

Peter Hall:

I'm the Managing Director at Resonance Impact Advisory, which is a small firm that does global work around partnerships, focusing on design and innovation, innovative finance. We do a lot of work in the global south, fostering partnerships between the private sector, philanthropy, and then donor agencies. A lot of that work is with USAID. And a lot of our work is really focused on impact. And how I got here was a long journey through engineering and consultancy construction space where, for many years, was involved in integrating adaptation and resilience into these companies. And I reached a point where I wanted to do more work creating a shift in the private sector for adaptation. And in a lot of ways that led me to this firm, which is just an amazing firm doing work around the world, creating impact around climate.

Mike Toffel:

Yeah, so you've worked in much larger organizations. Most recently WSP, and before that the Wood Group or Amec Foster Wheeler. WSP is an enormous global company. So talk a little bit about your transition from a large company to this smaller company and a little more about what Resonance actually does.

Peter Hall:

With a larger firm, they did, we did some advisory work, but a lot of our work was just based on RFPs and requests for work that we got from larger clients. It was very much infrastructure focused, critical infrastructure. And it was great work, but didn't have as much on the advisory side, where you can actually get higher up into companies and work with them strategically on what are your impacts? How do you need to partner? And how can you implement projects that then other firms can bid on to do the work oftentimes? So it's much more of a strategy influencing position here. The other big difference Resonance, only about a 100 people, primarily does work in the global south. So working on partnerships to deliver impacts in these areas, and we'll probably talk about it later, that are really hard hit by climate shocks.

Mike Toffel:

Let's talk a little bit about the thought process companies use to decide on the adaptation measures that they engage with. You've worked with many companies by now who've been thinking about this, just give us a little insider take on that thought process.

Peter Hall:

Yeah, it's interesting, some of the things we've seen with corporates, and in fact it's probably worth even saying what some of the drawbacks are. Why some of the larger companies, in general, are a little slow to integrate adaptation.. Oftentimes adaptation doesn't have a unified starting point. It's harder to get adaptation into the corporate decision-making and have it mainstreamed. Oftentimes it has longer time horizons. Where net zero is technology, adaptation is much more people-focused and it's harder to quantify that return on investment. The companies we're working for are seeing adaptations as risk avoidance but equally as a value creator. They're starting to look at, if we do these projects in these areas, not only can we avoid risk, we can actually create value for our company, for our communities that we work in, and it can drive innovation. And a couple of examples that we're working with now for circular economy, even though you wouldn't think it's related to adaptation, a lot of these projects are being pushed forward because of extreme heat.

Mike Toffel:

Mostly when you think of circular economy, you think about making better use of materials so that at the end of life it doesn't go into a landfill or an incinerator, but you take advantage of it and reuse it often. That's the circular idea, from cradle to cradle rather than cradle to grave as the old phrasing for that. I have not heard that model of circularity in the same sentence as adaptation before. So take us through an example or two, if you could, of how circularity is being used to promote adaptation.

Peter Hall:

Yeah, I'll tell you one example that comes to mind. It's some work we're doing with the World Resources Institute, the IKEA Foundation, and with a lot of interest from other corporates, is Accelerating a Circular Economy and Food Initiative project. It's in Africa and a lot of that work is being driven by climate change. So as you get extreme heat, droughts, different climate pressures into a system like a food system, being able to better deliver, grow, create opportunities for that sector to thrive becomes paramount. It almost becomes critical to even have that system function in the future. The other interesting thing is, it's not a future thing, it's actually happening now. A lot of the work we do in this space, also in some innovation spaces around technology and in fisheries for example, is we will set up partnerships around with a private sector, with a donor agency, oftentimes USAID, sometimes a philanthropy. And set up a program, take the risk out of it, identify common outputs that all the different stakeholders want to get to, they come in at different entry points and then deliver a project. And the great thing with these is as that platform gets promoted, you can then bring in other corporates for that program to really drive more impact.

Mike Toffel:

So let's dive in just the next level deeper. What are a few steps being taken that promote circular economy in food and also promote adaptation?

Peter Hall:

Yeah, so some of the things right now that are top of mind in driving this are better use of water. So water reuse, drought is a very big issue in Africa. And it's a big issue really around the world. So that in and of itself, drought, water reuse, water scarcity is certainly a climate shock. The other piece that we're seeing a lot of is extreme heat. The extreme heat that people are facing now, and will only get worse, even in a 1.5 C world, is starting to drive what you grow, how you store it, how you transport it. And a lot of those issues around functioning in an extreme heat environment. And some of the more progressive companies are even looking at how they protect workers in extreme heat. When they work, how they work, how they live.

Mike Toffel:

Interesting. With less water, there's an energy story there. If you're pumping less water in because you're making better use of it and preventing it from evaporating. But the reducing use of water, as you're noting, has this enormous adaptation element. Because as water becomes more scarce, either on average or in the extremes, that's an adaptation measure because it prevents the crops from dying out during these events.

Peter Hall:

Yeah, exactly. And another thing that it brings in is innovation. This will evolve to that. And other examples in Kenya and other areas are, you wouldn't think of storage as an adaptation piece. But with extreme heat, being able to store food a little longer gets to new markets, increases economic opportunities at the local level. So some of the innovations, something as simple as solar panels on cooling centers increases economic opportunity, addresses the climate shock. And the ones who are doing it well actually start to use those as energy hubs for villages, for example. So now you're getting into a whole systems approach around energy, food, storage. It tells a really good story, that linking adaptation together with mitigation.

Mike Toffel:

Very interesting. So I know you're also working with Nestle, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Peter Hall:

Yeah, and with a firm like Nestle, we're involved with them through a co-developed framework for adaptation with Resilience Rising and Resilience First. And a lot of the information and the work they're doing in this space is in their annual reports and it's very, very interesting. When you look at a firm like Nestle, and it could also be firms like Unilever, Cargill, global CPG firms that have a supply chain that's in areas really impacted by climate change. They're looking at what they grow in certain countries and how those materials will grow in 2040. So they're looking at extreme heat and can they even grow what they're growing now and transport those? But looking at now what they grow, how they protect workers, what are the countries that are going to be most impacted by extreme heat, how they transport those materials. And in a way, and we're seeing this in the investment sector, companies like that, and Unilever with a circular economy project and things like this, will I think be shown as leaders in this space. Because they're proactively looking at these programs in the face of climate shocks and becoming more investible, I think.

Mike Toffel:

It's interesting to hear these examples of companies thinking all the way ahead to how their value chain is going to look like in 2040, with the contrasting statistic that you've shared with me before that only 20% of companies in surveys by World Economic Forum or S&P have engaged in comprehensive planning for climate adaptation. So in your experience, what differentiates the companies who are much more forward looking from the vast majority that seem not to be worrying about these issues quite yet?

Peter Hall:

Yeah, it's a great question. And one of the things in that study that also jumped out is, of the firms that did those plans, I think it was only half had plans to start implementing those plans within 10 years. And when you look, we're in 2024 and the projections by 2030 are of course pretty severe, so that's alarming. The firms I think that jump out, they're larger companies, I think some of the research has shown that companies with market caps of over 2 billion tend to do more of this work. They're larger, they can take on more risk, they have the capacity, they can drive more partnerships, and they have larger value chains or supply chains. So that helps. And relative to some of these examples, a lot of the work that has to be done, has to be started in the next year or two in order to get some of these changes into their businesses in viable and moving forward in the next five to 10 years. So it can't be a wait issue, it's got to be a now issue. And that, even to your initial question of why I'm at Resonance, that's one of the reasons I'm here is we don't have five to 10 years. We really, in the next year or two or three, need to shift the private sector around these issues so we can get the work done and get to where we need to be by 2030 and 2040.

Mike Toffel:

Yeah. So you mentioned some of these efforts will take a decade to bear fruit. What happens in that time lag? Why is that time lag required? Why can't folks implement a program next year and then the year after it's up and running?

Peter Hall:

Yeah. It depends a little bit by sector. So in the food and ag sector, it just takes a longer period of time to come up with new types of crops or varieties. If you look at coffee for example, my understanding is it takes sometimes two or three years to get a new variety. And so there's a time lag there. The other piece, and we do a lot of this at Resonance, is it takes some time to develop partnerships. So a lot of this work is locally led, that's the other difference between the mitigation side of it. A lot of these adaptation projects have to be done at the local level. So even if you're a large corporation, you still need to develop partnerships with small, social enterprises and SMEs and smaller companies to do the work locally, to impact communities locally. And that takes some time. And it also gets back to measurement, it's harder to measure adaptation. It is doable. We've got a measurement team at Resonance working on impact measurements. And companies, as they get that information, can then make changes. So there's a lag with measurement too.

Mike Toffel:

Got it. Now the examples we've been talking about so far are major multinationals engaging in the global south with value chain partners.

Peter Hall:

Yeah.

Mike Toffel:

And so that's on the supply chain side. Are they also taking measures on their own operations? And with regard to customer preference changes, things like that?

Peter Hall:

Yeah, very interesting. And some of the things we're seeing, of course on the customer side, doing some work in what you see for CPG companies. So if you see the fashion industry or consumer goods, they're starting to see ... Customers want to see certain types of products and materials, and starting to ask where are these ingredients coming from? How are they sourced? And so that connection into the supply chain is starting, but I would say it's still a bit nascent, I think. You don't see labels for adaptation on products yet. The one area, though, I do think that a strong connection between customers and adaptation is in infrastructure. Because the infrastructure, you're providing critical transportation, logistics, opportunities for people. And when those fail, that's a big issue. So it's an easier one to measure.

Mike Toffel:

Are company's leaning into infrastructure analyses? In the US we have these reports we always see, of how much of our infrastructure is rated D or F by engineers. Which seems like is only going to get worse as we experience more extreme heat events, for example. Or the flooding that we're seeing. Are companies taking measures as part of their comprehensive risk planning to work around those or to help bolster those?

Peter Hall:

Yes. So it depends a little by geography. Certainly here with the Infrastructure Act, there's actually a component in that around resilience. Requiring large infrastructure projects to look at adaptation and resilience when you build those. I also think the SEC rule that just came out puts more emphasis on companies looking at the materiality of what they do. So that's starting to drive climate risk. Like, what's my physical risk for my operations, where I work, infrastructure. You're seeing insurance start to push harder on this, wanting to see more proactive planning around adaptation and resilience. And that's also starting to become a lot more common.

Mike Toffel:

Now, I can't help but notice the examples we've talked about with IKEA Foundation and Nestle, and last week's episode was on Aviva, a UK-based insurance company. These are all European-based companies. And we take, on one of the courses that I teach with one of my colleagues, we bring students to Denmark and the Netherlands to see the future of mitigation. Is the future of adaptation also being led out of Europe? Or are those just happen to be the examples you shared?

Peter Hall:

Well, the reports you shared at the outset, of the S&P report that just came out, does show a higher percentage of companies in Europe. And they're saying the EU CSRD is starting to drive this, it's one of their regulatory frameworks around sustainability. So you are, but I will say that a lot of the corporates that we're seeing lead on this are also from the US. And a lot of them are starting to connect their supply chain and value chains to climate shocks, especially in the global south. And seeing it as almost like a business imperative, not a, it's nice to do this, but it would actually be a real business driver in their strategy. The other thing I think is going to change this work quite a bit is a shift in the investor community. Just saw a couple of weeks ago that venture capital for adaptation, it was being called by Bloomberg as an uncovered or an untapped area. You've got BlackRock that came out of COP 28 saying they want to look at adaptation as an asset theme, as a new adaptation class. And looking at companies that are doing this work as having lower risk, higher value, more predictability, better investment. So that from the US, I think, may start to also drive how companies look at this.

Mike Toffel:

Interesting. And we'll post all these reports we're referring to in the show notes. So we've been talking about ag mostly, so far, but lots of companies have the investments they're making with the intention of them lasting for decades. Whether it be a steel mill or a data center or a wafer fab plants. Are you seeing those industries, either heavy industry or high-tech industry, also leaning into these comprehensive risk assessments because of the anticipated long duration of the assets? We mentioned infrastructure as well.

Peter Hall:

Yeah. One of the reports that we supported last year, and it's ongoing this year, on how to catalyze private sector action around adaptation. Some of the firms that supported the work along with Resonance were AT&T and Meta and Marsh for example. So for a lot of those companies, they're looking at their physical assets. So distribution lines. Look no further than wildfires and the issue around adaptation and transmission. Certainly adaptation around their manufacturing plants as far as reliable energy, how people get to those plants in a changing climate. And another area to mention, we're doing a little bit of work with Microsoft and USAID on digital connections. And you wouldn't think that's adaptation, but some of that work is how do you get that energy to the end users? And increasingly, extreme winds, like I said wildfires, extreme heat, that comes into play. The adaptation side, around technology, digital access, and communities.

Mike Toffel:

Right. How much do you think adaptation is going to be able to be done proactively in the way that we're describing, versus we're just going to wait for yet more disasters. The next Hurricane Sandy, the next Hurricane Irma, to finally get enough public support and investor support to encourage companies to take these actions more seriously?

Peter Hall:

Yeah, it's always cheaper to do this before the event happens than after. And it's something we do at Resonance as well, is helping our clients look at their return on investment. So one of the things that I noticed is, this came out of one of the reports, that if an investment of 1.8 trillion across five critical areas through 2030 could yield 7.1 trillion in total net benefits. Well that's proactive investment in critical areas. And we're talking things like early warning systems, climate resilient infrastructure. Of course, agriculture, water resources, things like that. It's cheaper to do it upfront, of course, but the other part is you're protecting people so they're not disrupted in the future. So there's so many benefits to doing this proactively. And once you look at the impact to people, and you start to measure their resilience, the return on that investment by doing it proactively becomes pretty clear.

Mike Toffel:

Yeah. I mean it seems to me there's two challenges in this context, even when you have nearly $2 trillion of cost or investment leading to 4X, the returns. One is that, some of those returns probably are not captured by the investors themselves, but they're gained by society. And so capturing returns is a question mark. And the other is that this is over the long run, which involves lots of short-run question marks as to whether it's going to happen this year or next year. And if managers have a five-year tenure in mind, they might ... Yes, this might happen once in the next 20 years, and overall it's cheaper if you do some of these things sooner. If it doesn't happen in your five-year tenure, well then it just looks like you spent a bunch of money and got nothing for it. So there's these two aspects of capturing the returns and the time scale mismatch. Can you talk about this?

Peter Hall:

Yeah. And you've hit on two of the bigger issues, I think, why the uptake has been slower than it should be, is the time horizon. A lot of these events are now events. I mean, you look at the extreme heat, the wildfires, the flooding, it's not like we have to wait to see what they look like. We're seeing those now. But that said, a lot of companies still need to connect where they work with extreme weather events and climate shocks so they can internalize those into their risk models. I do think some of the reporting pieces with TCFD, another one's called TNFD, are going to start to put more pressure on companies to quantify their risks, short-term and long-term, and put that into their business frameworks. And you touched on the other one, just the time horizons of management at companies. WBCSD is going to come out with a really interesting framework to accelerate the dialogue and opportunities to communicate adaptation to the C-suite in these companies. And lay out some of the reasons why it's in your best interest as a business to look at this now and not do it down the road in five to 10 years.

Mike Toffel:

And so that will join a growing number of frameworks and roadmaps that are out there. Some that you've mentioned already, the BlackRock climate resilience effort, the Climate Resilience pathways that Resonance helped fund, and there's plenty of others. The analyzed data for asset protection that enables transformation framework, the ADAPT framework. Frameworks by Rockefeller Foundation and others. And again, we'll provide links to these in the show notes. What is the genesis and the goal of all of these frameworks and roadmaps?

Peter Hall:

Yeah, I think one of the gaps that we've seen, and not just in private sector, I think across government agencies, and even with philanthropy to be honest, is it's been a very siloed effort. It's been fairly fragmented. It's been harder to articulate what adaptation and resilience is as compared to net zero and mitigation. So one of the common themes around all of these is to promote a common narrative with some key metrics, drive transparency, show how these projects are investable and can create a return, and elevate action across sectors. So there's a lot of frameworks out there, if we can just get a framework for the private sector that can leverage in across all these corporates, it would just help accelerate the work around the narrative. And one that I was involved in that's worth mentioning is, much like you have the Paris Accord for energy, the Sharm Adaptation Agenda, they always name it after the COP where it was announced, set up as a goal to improve the resiliency of 4 billion people by 2030. Lofty goal, but gave some targets. So here are the five target sectors, here are the things that have to be done, and if these are done across public, private, and NGO efforts, you could really create a tipping point for resiliency for people. So it gives you a target to shoot for. What's missing in what these frameworks do is the roadmap on how you get there.

Mike Toffel:

So when you're engaging with your client organizations, and particularly I know you work with different sectors, but with companies, is there one of these roadmaps or frameworks that is your go-to guide to try and explain to them the benefits, the value proposition?

Peter Hall:

Yeah. Probably the one that we've used, and it's woven into the catalyzing business engagement work with Resilience Rising and Resilience First, who we've supported for a number of years, along with Rockefeller. It's really the idea that you have to understand your climate risks. You have to understand what shocks could affect your operations, where you work, where your supply chains are. Then implementing projects where you protect people, protect assets. So you have the climate data, you know where your assets are, and then adaptation measures to protect those assets. And then this gets into the return on investment, then starting to measure the impact of this project so you can allow companies to transform. They can start to look at new markets, new revenue streams, new ways to manage risk, new ways to attract employees. A whole range of things around the transforming side, but at the basic level it's connecting the science with the asset protection to deliver some impact that you can measure.

Mike Toffel:

Got it. Now understanding the risks and shocks is your first step. Now, in an earlier episode we interviewed folks from Probable Futures, which has one of many tools that are out there to try and bring climate modeling into a graphical interface. To use a map to figure out where your operations are, where your suppliers are, and maybe your customers. What are the tools that you work with clients to try and figure out, how do we understand our risks and potential shocks?

Peter Hall:

There's a lot of information out there. Some of the work we did on the catalyzing private sector action, I know AT&T has been working with Argonne Labs, has a lot of information. The Woodwell Climate Institute, out of Woods Hole, has some great information where you can start to look at climate shocks in a very granular level in certain regions. Another resource is even some of the work that Google Earth. I mean, they're starting to move into this space where you can look at the climate shocks in an area. And one that's coming up that I think it's really worth watching is the Resilient Planet data hub. And again, it's open source data where, if you're a company, you now should be able to find out climate shocks where you work over a certain time horizon and have that data in hand. The most important part is then, with that data, what do you do with it? So where do you operate? How do you take that data? How do you develop partnerships and programs to address that risk and turn it into an opportunity?

Mike Toffel:

Right. And that's where you're working with clients side-by-side.

Peter Hall:

Exactly. Exactly. And a lot of the work now, when you get to that stage, especially in the global south and some of these sectors, it has to be locally led. So you really need partnerships to do the work.

Mike Toffel:

Right. Now, whose job is it in companies to think about this? This is something that I've been a little bit puzzled by. I mean even in the 20% of companies in these surveys who claim they do have these comprehensive risk assessments, half of them you said are not going to start for a while in implementation. So presumably, there's 10% of some sample size of companies who are doing this work now. And you've mentioned a few. Is that coming out of their supply chain departments? Or is it coming out of their Chief Sustainability Officers? Or the innovation hub? Who's taking up the mantle of this work?

Peter Hall:

Yeah, great question. And that's one of the, I think, differences also between the mitigation work, where you can put it into a more defined focused area. Adaptation includes a lot of different areas within a company. This is one of the reasons I think it's been harder for corporates to get their arms around this. Some companies it's the Chief Sustainability Officer, with a wider remit to look at adaptation. It could be the Risk Officer. Some of these larger companies have a Supply Chain Manager. It could even fall into Procurement. So there's a lot of different areas within a company that intersect this issue. which really starts to drive, do you need someone at a corporate level that oversees and ties together these different functions? In a lot of ways that's what these frameworks are driving towards is, at a corporate level, at the private sector, is how can this work be driven as a system and not as a siloed project? And in some companies you could even have the CFO involved, because there are financial risks.

Mike Toffel:

So silos within organizations, but different silos in different organizations. Are there opportunities, conferences, or such where people come together to share their struggles and their best practices, which would attract some procurement people, some supply chain people, some CFOs, some consultants who are working in this area. Is there a place to be to learn the latest and greatest?

Peter Hall:

Yeah. I mean, the ones of course that come to mind are the COP events, which are good, but they're very large. The New York Climate Week, the London Climate Week, the ones that are on the radar every year are good. I think one this year that is going to get more attention, especially in the food systems, nature-based part of this whole equation, is the Biodiversity Summit in October, I think, in Cali Colombia. The COP-XVI, focused on biodiversity, nature-based solutions, really also focusing on peoplecentered solutions. But a lot of the conferences where you have smaller ... Like WBCSD is doing one pulling together the private sector around an adaptation launch over a report. Some of those are great because you get a very concentrated group of companies together.

Mike Toffel:

Right. So some large, some small.

Peter Hall:

Yeah, both. Yep.

Mike Toffel:

Got it, interesting. So now you mentioned COP a few times, now you yourself were seconded to work with the UNFCCC, the organization behind these COPs, these Conference on Parties. Can you talk a little bit about your decision to take some time to work with them and what you accomplished in that?

Peter Hall:

Yeah. I started at the COP environment in Glasgow, so the COP-26. I was trying to get our company involved in the Race to Resilience, which was going to be the companion of the Race to Zero, just because our company was doing that kind of work. And through some colleagues and friends said, "How about if you second into the race to Resilience?" So I've been there, I was there until last year when I rolled off, but it was really timely because you can almost think of it as two or three different steps. The first one was elevating adaptation, and it was this idea that even in a 1.5 world, you're going to have upwards of 4 billion people facing climate shocks in vulnerable countries, in vulnerable populations in the global south. So it was almost an opportunity to elevate adaptation on the global stage and then translate that into work we did at our company. And then the next year was worth staying involved because that's when we developed this adaptation agenda of how you can push towards targets to really create and accelerate resilience for people. That led to a target setting framework. And then this year I've stepped off and now at Resonance focused more on, well, how do you get there? And that's the frameworks. How does a company get from where they're at to push into these frameworks? So it's been an evolution of awareness, targets, and now getting the work done.

Mike Toffel:

Interesting. So let's talk a little bit about advice and opportunities. Where do you see opportunities to engage in this work for those looking to think about this as a career or an internship opportunity? It seems like there's many different sectors that you've mentioned; donor agencies, foundations, NGOs, government agencies, companies.

Peter Hall:

Yeah, and it's a timely question because I'm privileged at Resonance to lead a team in the Impact Advisory Team where they're all, I think under 35. So it's a younger team. And they're amazing. So a lot of them come from international backgrounds or MBA business backgrounds or a technical specialty. But what we're seeing is a lot more graduates being very interested in adaptation. I think because of the people side, the nature part of it, and the ability to see impact on the ground sooner than later. I think having a specialty, whether it's in business or food and ag or infrastructure or technology, is really important. One of the things we've seen, and we've touched on it at the company level, with the silos, there's so many different elements to bring together. Having someone that can think in a systems lens, can connect, certainly someone who's very creative, is really important. And I think it's a great time right now for young leaders because it's a fairly new area of work. And a lot of work needs to be done. So you can do that work at the corporate level, because companies are hiring in this area. The consultancy level, where you're working in partnership with companies to do the work. And philanthropy is another one. There's philanthropy, in fact Climate Works is doing some really interesting work now pulling together all the philanthropies, or most of them, to come up with an adaptation framework. So philanthropy, in a lot of ways, they de-risk the work for corporates and donor agencies. Very important. So there's that avenue. And there's great work in USAID and federal agencies that are also doing the work. So there's a lot of different areas, but I think flexibility, thinking in a systems mindset. Creativity, because it's changing all the time, is important.

Mike Toffel:

What are some of the leading consultancies or companies that you would encourage folks to look to?

Peter Hall:

Yeah. Well, of course keep your eye open on Resonance. We're small. We're only 100 people. But firms in the consultancy space, we've done some work with BCG. They do very good work. Great work in this area. Also firms like Deloitte is doing a fair amount of this work, we've actually worked with them in the past. And honestly, some of the corporates. So I think as you have companies like PepsiCo, like Unilever, like Microsoft, Google, are starting to hire more people in this area to do the work. And then international development. Another untapped one is insurance, I think insurance is starting to hire more people in this area as they look at adaptation and resilience as well.

Mike Toffel:

Yeah. Are there particular insurance companies that come to mind that are leading the way in this?

Peter Hall:

Yeah, we're starting to engage a bit with Howden Group who's doing really good work. They're part of this report that I mentioned earlier. And Aon Insurance is another one doing interesting work around adaptation and insurance for smallholder farmers and a range of things around adaptation that are helping to shift the market.

Mike Toffel:

Terrific. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners about the work that you're doing and the future that you think it holds?

Peter Hall:

Yeah. Only that I think to really solve the climate crisis and to keep our optimism, it gets a little difficult sometimes to see the temperature projections. I think adaptation really is the optimistic side of the coin. If we can protect people in this future climate, and drive towards mitigation together, I think then we have a real good chance of getting to our 2030 goals. Or certainly on a path where we can start to see a future.

Mike Toffel:

Great. Well, Peter, it's been a really interesting conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to visit with us here on Climate Rising.

Peter Hall:

Thank you very much.

Mike Toffel:

That was my conversation with Peter Hall from Resonance Impact Advisory.

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