- Climate change has been one of the top concerns for the past four years in AXA’s global Future Risks Report
- Many SMEs want to take meaningful action but need help to understand how future climate impacts could affect the long-term viability of their businesses
- AXA Insurance UK has partnered with AXA Climate to create a programme of bitesize online modules to help SMEs get started on their sustainability journey
Climate change has been the number one concern for the public for four consecutive years in AXA’s global Future Risks Report and the UK is witnessing direct impacts such as more frequent incidents of extreme weather and flooding.
For small and medium sized businesses (SMEs), responding to climate change can be complex, particularly when considering how future impacts may affect the long-term viability of their products, services and premises. To support this, AXA Insurance UK has launched a free programme designed to help SMEs build informed, strategic thinking around adaptation to climate risk.
For SMEs, it can be challenging to look ahead and assess what increasing extreme weather risks may mean for their businesses in years to come. By working with AXA Climate, we’ve developed a programme that gives them a launchpad to begin to explore building an effective adaptation strategy to identify and address their exposure to extreme weather risks.
Businesses need the right framework to start thinking strategically about resilience and long‑term viability in a rapidly changing world. Our aim is to share AXA’s 40 years of risk-management expertise in a way that helps SMEs make informed decisions about their future.
AXA Climate – AXA’s dedicated global entity that helps organisations address climate and environmental adaptation challenges – created AXA Climate School in 2021. The in-depth training has been rolled out to all AXA employees worldwide, and in the UK an abridged version was created to share with brokers and their customers.
A number of AXA Climate School modules have now been reframed specifically for SMEs with a focus on adaptation. The programme explains why it’s important to ensure a business is resilient and future-proofed and gives SMEs the tools to take steps towards understanding and addressing their own risks and risks to their customers and supply chain.
It’s a free, bitesize resource that’s easy to implement. It helps SMEs focus on practical steps they can take that will have a positive impact on their own businesses, customers and wider society against a backdrop of rising costs and an increasingly difficult operating environment for SMEs.
As an insurer, we do more than just settle claims. We want to create partnerships with our customers that offer multiple benefits for their businesses, and this provides practical solutions to complex problems that can be implemented without huge expense.
The SME adaptation modules have already been successfully adopted in other AXA markets including Italy and Spain, demonstrating their relevance for businesses operating across different regions and in diverse climate conditions.