Last month, I sat in a room in Lymington, in the New Forest, with around eighty fellow residents of our local area. We were there for something called The People’s Emergency Climate Briefing. If you have not heard of it, I would encourage you to seek it out. The format is deliberately broad: a bit of something for everyone, from food security to immigration, from public health to the macroeconomy. What struck me, though, was not the breadth. It was the urgency and depth of the problem.
And it made me think about my own backyard. Not the New Forest itself, but the businesses that operate in it and around it. Small and medium-sized enterprises. The backbone of the UK economy. The companies that will feel the squeeze of climate disruption long before the policies and regulations catch up.
Climate Change Is Not a “Net Zero” Debate. It Is a Business Continuity Issue.
Let me get something off my chest. The phrase “Net Zero” has become so politically loaded, so sullied by culture wars and vague commitments, that it has lost practical meaning for many business owners. Mention it in a room of SME leaders and you will see eyes glaze over or at least roll. That is understandable. But it is also dangerous.
The briefing in Lymington made something abundantly clear: climate impacts are not a set of future hypothetical threats . They are landing now, in ways that touch every corner of a business. This is not about ideology or any political party. It is simply about operational risk. If your supply chain runs through regions facing increasing drought, flooding, or political instability tied to resource scarcity, your business has a climate exposure risk. You may or may not use that language, but that’s what you’ve got. And it’s a show stopper.
Where Climate Disruption Will Hit SMEs Hardest
Supply Chain Fragility
If you import components, ingredients, or materials from overseas, you are already exposed to the kind of volatility that climate change worsens. A flood in a manufacturing region doesn’t just displace local communities that you might see on TV. It disrupts your lead times. A drought in an agricultural belt does not just make headlines and charity campaigns. It raises your input costs. As SMEs, with our thinner margins and smaller buffers, we feel these shocks more acutely than large corporations with all their diversified sourcing effectively spread-betting their risk.
The question is not whether your supply chain will be disrupted. It is when, and whether you have a plan.
Unstable Foreign Markets
Many SMEs that export or rely on international customers are watching markets become increasingly volatile and unpredictable. Currency fluctuations driven by climate-related economic shocks, shifting trade routes as regions become less habitable, and new carbon border adjustments (international carbon tariffs) are all reshaping the political and economic landscape. The businesses that thrive will be the ones that map these risks early and diversify. That’s something we can all learn from the big corporates.
Health and Safety, and the Rising Cost of Compliance
This is an area that catches people off guard. Climate change will reshape workplace health and safety obligations. Rising working temperatures are already a concern in warehouses, kitchens, and manufacturing floors. Particulate matter from increased wildfire activity (as we have seen to devastating effect in the New Forest recently) is a growing air quality issue which particularly affects the young and the old. Access to clean water, drainage, and flood resilience for commercial premises are all moving up the regulatory agenda. It’s not “making a fuss”, because things will sort themselves out again in time. We don’t have that time as employers.
Each of these brings cost. Retrofitting ventilation, updating risk assessments, ensuring thermal comfort for staff, meeting new emissions reporting requirements. They are coming, and the businesses that prepare now will spend less than those that scramble later.
Why This Is Not Shroud Waving
I want to be clear about the tone here. I am not in the business of frightening fellow business owners into paralysis. The Lymington briefing was sobering, yes, but it was also galvanising. The message was not “give up.” The message was “get ready.”
And here is the good news: the things that make a business resilient to climate disruption are, in most cases, the things that make it a better business anyway. Avoiding waste reduces costs and exposure to resource price spikes. Planning for the future builds confidence with lenders, investors, and customers. Seeking out new markets, particularly those less exposed to climate risk, diversifies revenue and gives you crucial options. Energy efficiency lowers overheads. Supply chain mapping reveals vulnerabilities you might have missed entirely.
These are not sacrifices. They are sound leadership decisions.
A Practical Starting Point for SME Leaders
You do not need a fifty-page sustainability strategy to begin*. You need a clear-eyed assessment of where climate impacts could reach into your business in places you least expect. Start with three questions:
- Where are your supply chain pinch-points? Map your critical inputs. Test what happens if those sources are disrupted for a week, a month, or a whole production cycle.
- Where are your compliance and H&S exposures? Talk to your insurers. Ask about climate-related risk assessments. Look at your workplace environment with fresh eyes (or at least theirs!).
- Where are your growth opportunities? Climate adaptation is creating new markets and opportunities, from retrofit services to resilient logistics. Positioning early is a wise competitive advantage, not a cost.
The Leaders Who Act Now Will Be the Ones Who Thrive
There are People’s Emergency Briefings up and down the UK. Please get to one. The one I attended in Lymington was not a gathering of activists, as some would have you believe. In fact, it was a room full of ordinary people of all ages. The group included parents, carers, politicians, business owners, recognising that the landscape is shifting all around us. The climate does not care about political opinions or cultural arguments. It is already affecting supply chains, markets, workplaces and costs regardless of anything that anyone thinks and wants to spout online.
The SMEs that prosper in the coming decades will be the ones whose leaders refused to bury their heads in the sand now. Not because they are idealists, but because they are pragmatists. They understand that good business means anticipating change, not reacting to it after the damage is done.
I walked out of that briefing in Lymington with a sharper sense of purpose. Not fear. Purpose. And I would encourage every SME owner reading this to find that same sense, before the market decides it for you. It’s a leadership decision and if you want to talk about that, please get in touch as it’s what I do.
*If you would like great support to have a proper sustainability strategy, you can start with a free download from True Horizon. That’s where I got mine!