When we sat down with the operations leader of a large enterprise, he recounted how a sudden flood had forced them to shut down a critical manufacturing facility for several weeks. He said his team had focused on responding to disasters rather than planning for them. Climate change was not on the boardroom agenda until it hit them directly. From this, you can see there is no escaping the fact that shifts in our planet’s weather patterns are starting to test organizations' agility and preparedness for the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. It is paramount that they act now to secure long-term resilience.
Three key takeaways:
- Orange Business has developed products and solutions that help our customers anticipate climate risks and embed resilience into every part of their operations
- From climate crisis response to climate strategic planning, we are helping our customers tackle climate change by deploying solutions that help with IT for Climate Adaptation, focusing on business resilience and preparedness
- Orange Business has a portfolio of products and services available that can be used to address climate change issues, including Computer Vision, Live Objects, data-driven insight and dashboarding, SafetyCase and more
Environmental risks are a primary long-term concern for businesses. According to the World Economic Forum's annual Global Risks Report, they are projected to intensify over the next decade with severe weather, biodiversity loss and disruptions to the Earth’s systems as emerging challenges . Numerous pain points relate to climate challenges. Enterprises are struggling with anticipating climate risks, a lack of investment in infrastructure resilience, vulnerable systems and assets, insufficient crisis management tools and ongoing limited awareness and low prioritization of proactive climate change strategies, for example.
Orange Business tackles these issues by applying its portfolio of products and solutions for Climate Adaptation, focusing on resilience and preparedness. Using digital technologies, data and connectivity, its goal is to prepare for, respond to and recover from climate-related impacts and ensure business continuity.
We can engage customers in IT for Climate Adaptation as a technology enabler through cloud, AI, IoT and secure connectivity, and as a strategic partner, helping enterprises design resilient operating models by adapting solutions and services to align with regulatory and sustainability goals.
In addition, we can help enterprises restore operations, re-establish connections and strengthen their foundations should a climate change disaster occur.
Climate regulations are pushing businesses to strengthen risk planning
Across Europe, new regulatory frameworks also drive enterprises to strengthen their resilience for climate-related risks, ensuring they are prepared for increased legislation.
Initiatives such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which requires companies to disclose their climate-related information, including their transition plans for climate change mitigation, and the Critical Entities Resilience Directive (CER) aim to reduce risks and strengthen critical entities' physical resilience. This demands that enterprises draw up a strategy to anticipate and mitigate disruption.
Beyond compliance, these regulations also compel enterprises to adopt robust continuity plans, sustainable infrastructures and risk management strategies in an era of increasing climate volatility.
To achieve this, companies must adopt a structured approach, starting with assessments of their infrastructure vulnerabilities to various hazards and corrections in order to limit potential disruptions to their operations. Orange Business partners with experts on next scenario planning with solutions, anticipating how different climate risks could impact critical business operations. Based on these insights, Orange Business can develop transition and continuity strategies, such as plans to maintain connectivity when traditional networks go down. Customers should further embed governance, ensuring regular updates as risks evolve. Finally, companies can train staff and engage stakeholders ensuring that climate change resilience strategies are actionable.
Maintaining business continuity
As a leading network and digital operator, business continuity is central to our role in maintaining critical infrastructure. Take the flooding on the island of Mayotte and surrounding areas last year due to the violent tropical cyclone Chido. In addition to displacing thousands of people and causing material damage, it disrupted 26,000 businesses that depend on stable communications and IT systems.
Following the Mayotte disaster, Orange Business stepped in to provide emergency connectivity solutions to restore communications and ensure the resumption of essential services to keep the economy going. For example, temporary mobile and satellite connections enabled businesses and educational institutions to stay online when terrestrial networks were down. We also helped companies with remote-working solutions and provided cybersecurity and data protection during the recovery phase, when infrastructures were vulnerable.
Tracking climate change with data-driven insight
We go beyond supporting organizations when disasters occur. We also provide a proactive approach to shifting climate action from crisis response to strategic planning. Thanks to IOT or Computer Vision, we can anticipate flooding, detect fires starting, and trigger alerts and action plans. Organizations can prepare, reduce exposure and strengthen resilience by identifying possible disasters.
We can leverage third-party advanced algorithms to detect anomalies and identify early warning signals for extreme weather patterns, turning them into actionable insights. Thanks to our IoT management platform, Live Objects, we trigger alerts, enabling rapid, smart decision-making for risk mitigation.
These predictions can be delivered directly into dashboards, crisis management platforms or automated response systems, enabling rapid, smart decision-making for risk mitigation.
Safeguarding field workers with computer vision, Live Objects
Protecting field workers during climate disasters is critical for their safety and business continuity. These technicians often work on the frontlines, maintaining infrastructure, restoring services and responding to emergencies.
We can help protect them using Augmented Reality (AR). Experts can provide remote guidance using live video streams overlayed onto AR glasses, providing instructions and maps of safe paths and danger zones. Here, computer vision can utilize AI to detect and analyze safety risks, such as access to hazardous areas.
Enterprises can use Live Objects to equip field staff with IoT devices such as GPS trackers, environmental sensors and wearable monitors, continuously transmitting location and surrounding environmental data.
Maintaining communications with SafetyCase
Retaining communication during adverse weather events is imperative for maintaining operational continuity, ensuring worker safety and coordinating emergency response teams. It is also central to our customers' resilience roadmap.
Our skilled team of experts provides resilient and secure connectivity solutions to meet these needs following a climate disaster, including reliable satellite links, mobile networks and cloud-based communications platforms when infrastructures are compromised. SafetyCase, our compact, standalone telecom solution, includes satellite and mobile multi-SIM connectivity, which can be set up and activated in 30 minutes. It creates secure Wi-Fi and high-speed Internet access providing up to fourteen hours of autonomous operation. If electricity is down, the solution can be battery-operated.
Cannes in the South of France has adopted SafetyCase to mitigate potential network outrages in the city. Extreme weather events, such as Storm Alex and the floods of 2015 in the South of France, highlighted the need for rigorous preparation and rapid response to protect citizens and minimize impact on infrastructure. A Major Risks Department dedicated to crisis anticipation and management was set up, to which SafetyCase is pivotal in bolstering its ability to respond effectively to emergency situations.
If you haven’t started managing climate change – start today
Businesses worldwide are already feeling the impact of climate change. According to the World Meteorological Organization, last year was the hottest on record, with a trail of unprecedented weather events resulting in heatwaves, storms, floods and blackouts. This trend will continue, with sea-level rise and ocean warming locked in for hundreds of years.
While enterprises can’t reverse climate risks, they can make themselves more resilient by mitigating their impact and planning for a future where disruption is set to be more frequent.
Through data-driven dashboards and insights, computer vision, Live Objects and SafetyCase, Orange Business provides many products and solutions to help your organization become more climate resilient.
To learn more about how Orange Business can help your business become more resilient against the threats of climate change, contact us.
Virginie Dubois
As Marketing Manager, Virginie has specialized over the past five years in developing the value proposition for Orange Business CSR initiatives. She is currently overseeing ongoing Group work on climate change adaptation. Virginie also engages with various companies to better understand their challenges and identify how Orange Business can best support its clients in the context of climate change.
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