In her first public speech, new US Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy urged businesses to embrace the opportunity in fighting climate change since this will ultimately bring more jobs, saying that lowering carbon footprint can strengthen the economy. A recent report by the American Sustainable Business Council entitled “Climate Change Preparedness and the Small Business Sector” also disclosed that small businesses are the ones that are especially vulnerable to climate change, with floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and other disasters enough to put small businesses permanently out of business.

In the Philippines, small and medium scale enterprises – from agriculture to real estate to the retail sector – know very well the crippling effects of major disasters, with many unable to recover from the devastating effects of Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng and even the heavy rains in August last year. At the recent Green Retail Agenda conference titled “Adapting Business for Climate Change” organized by SM Prime Holdings, various business leaders as well as representatives from government, the academe and media discussed the implications of climate change, with focus given on disaster risk resilience, logistics programs as well as sustainable best practices that could help empower retail businesses in preparation for the unforeseen effects of climate change.

Environmental champion Senator Loren Legarda, who chairs the Senate Committee on Climate Change, has been encouraging the business sector to devote more effort in disaster risk reduction efforts, noting that the country’s economic gains are at “high risk” to disasters particularly those brought about by typhoons and earthquakes, with potential losses estimated at over $9 billion in the wake of a strong earthquake.

The Green Retail Agenda comes on the heels of the UN University Institute for Environment and Human Security World Risk Index that ranked the Philippines as the third among countries most prone to disasters. SM Prime president Hans Sy was recently admitted to the by-invitation only Private Sector Advisory Group and was a presenter at the Global Forum on Disaster Risk Reduction by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) in Geneva a few months ago.

Hans told us it’s about time businesses pooled their knowledge on the threat of climate change for the survival not only of businesses but also the communities – something which should be in the agenda of every businessman big or small.