Business

BUSINESS ADVISORY BOARD

The Living With Environmental Change Partnership helps business mitigate, adapt to and benefit from environmental change.  LWEC has established a Business Advisory Board (BAB), chaired by Colin Drummond OBE and comprising other senior business leaders, to help ensure that the foresight, tools and knowledge provided by LWEC taskforces are relevant to business needs.  Strategic advice covers:

•Business challenges relevant to the environment.

•Skills and knowledge gaps in business.

•Ways to communicate better with business people so that research can be found and used.

•Commercial opportunities for LWEC’s activities.

•How policy can best enable business opportunities.

If you are considering risks and opportunities from climate change, grappling with supply chain, distribution and resource management issues caused by environmental changes or keen on innovation for a greener economy, LWEC has knowledge and expertise to help.

We also facilitate dialogue and briefings between business leaders and government so needs are better understood and embedded in the design of programmes and activities.

UPDATE ON BAB: MAY 2013

The Business Advisory Board meets three times a year - most recently in January 2013 and May 2013.  In January, two new members were elected: Greg Lowe, Head of Sustainability, Aon UK Limited and Robert Spencer, Business Line Director – Sustainability, URS Infrastructure & Environment UK.  Recent speakers welcomed by the Board have included Lord Krebs, Chair of the Adaptation Sub-Committee and Colin McKinnon, incoming Director for Innovation and Communication at the Natural Environment Research Council.

Topics recently considered include better regulation, bringing about behaviour change, the challenges of valuing nature, limiting climate disruption and its impacts, flooding and coastal erosion risk management and knowledge synthesis.  Full details of BAB’s advice are recorded in the minutes.  Examples from recent meetings include the need for researchers or research-translators to work closely with business to identify their problems, re-iteration of  the need to use business-friendly language and the value of presenting information as “a framework for thinking” with powerful case studies.  

At the next meeting in October 2013, the topics to be discussed include the business aspects of two of LWEC’s taskforces: limiting climate disruption and health and wellbeing in a changing climate.

Reports of BAB meetings and other information can be downloaded below.