Business for Goals (B4G) Platform’s new training series raise awareness of businesses on the expected impacts of climate change and how to be prepared for them.

Within the scope of Business for Goals (B4G) Platform’s “Business Climate Resilience Project” aiming to support businesses in Turkey to become climate resilient, the first session of the “Business Climate Resilience Training Programme” for the private sector organisations was held on 17 and 24 December 2021.

At the training, issues related to the climate crisis, climate-induced disasters and their impacts were discussed with the focus of business continuity, risk reduction and management with examples from Turkey and the world. The curriculum was designed to cover multidimensional aspects of business climate resilience and participants increased their knowledge and awareness on global and national climate agenda.

Guest speakers delivered sessions in order for the business world representatives to have a better understanding on climate change risks and the necessity for the adaptation of existing production systems. Diren Ertekin from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Turkey informed on climate adaptation and monitoring activities conducted by UNDP and Betül Kurada from the Ministry of Interior Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) gave a speech on critical infrastructures, business continuity plans and impacts of climate change. Prof. Dr. Alper Baba from Izmir Institute of Technology, Department of Water Resources addressed critical problems from the perspective of energy and water, and Evin Pehlivanlı from TÜSİAD’s Foods, Beverages and Agriculture Working Group touched on macroeconomic and sectoral impacts of disasters caused by climate change.

The Business Climate Resilience Training will be held for the second time on 28 January and 4 February, and the toolkit developed for private sector representatives active in the agriculture, food and water sectors will be released shortly.

The “Business Climate Resilience Project” was launched on 12 October 2021 within the scope of B4G’s Climate Change and Disaster Resilience programme area, and with the support of Connecting Business Initiative (CBi). As part of the efforts, “Climate Resilience Private Sector Seminars” took place on 10 - 17 November, in which climate related disasters that have current and foreseen negative impacts on the private sector were addressed.

B4G, founded in 2019 by a joint initiative of TURKONFED, TUSIAD and UNDP, is a platform that carries out its work in order to increase the contribution of the private sector in achieving Sustainable Development Goals, resilience and inclusive growth, through common ground and collective action under the leadership of private sector.