A new business network is putting engineering and transport firms at the heart of global recovery resilience.
Engineering and transport firms are set to be at the centre of a new global business network created to help companies, cities and governments confront emerging global economic and environmental shocks.
More than 600 businesses, with annual revenues of more than $3trillion and employing more than ten million people across 150 countries, underpin the collaboration between think tank The Resilience Shift and Resilience First, the world’s largest resilience business network.
The new network brings together disparate industries – from finance, to retail, technology, engineering and the built environment – to help governments and businesses promote economic recovery and shape post-pandemic stimulus that builds resilience and accelerates global decarbonisation efforts.
Engineering and transport firms including WSP, Atkins, Arup, and Lloyds Register Foundation will share a platform with businesses ranging from HSBC and Tesco to Intel, Perkins&Will (Dar Group) and NBC Universal International. This will enable them to be involved in, and to influence, holistic decision-making around the delivery of resilient and sustainable infrastructure.
Dame Jo da Silva, global sustainable development leader at Arup, said the new network was a crucial development as pressure from population growth and mass urbanisation, changing technology and ever-increasing globalisation, meant infrastructure systems had become fragile, increasing the vulnerability of all those who depend on them.
“Over the last year, the importance of resilience has been made starkly clear; from firms enabling us all to adapt to online work or adapting to online product and services, through to healthcare services responding to the massive increase in intensive care cases, and even energy and transport networks operating on a skeleton staff,” said da Silva. “This ability to adapt to and recover from crisis or change will only become more critical as we navigate the implications of climate change, digital transformation, a growing population and less resources over the next 20 years,” she said.
The new network will focus on helping create conditions for post-Covid economic recovery and the drive to net-zero emissions, as well as supporting the Roadmap to COP and the UN Decade of Action.
Critical infrastructure investment
The collaboration between Resilience First and The Resilience Shift will be a catalyst for creating a safe, resilient, and sustainable future for all. It will form a single global hub to spur knowledge, advice and best practice, and bring forward innovative, resilient solutions to pervasive climate and societal challenges by:
- Influencing government policy to help incentivise and enhance critical, climate resilient infrastructure.
- Stimulating resilience-focused finance and investment.
- Building an unrivaled global community that enables disparate industries and communities to work together to enhance public and private sector resilience.
- Creating cross-sector networks and working groups to share knowledge, advice and best practice, and make practical recommendations.
- Promoting global leadership on bold, decisive action on resilience.
The strategic partnership comes at a critical juncture for businesses, cities, and governments to effectively respond to sudden shocks, such as the Covid-19 global pandemic. While the world is still reeling from the pandemic and governments look to jump-start global economies, prioritising and ensuring a resilient future is more important now than ever. Leading science highlights that the world has less than ten years to avert the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. Climate-related disasters alone have cost the world economy US$650bn over the past three years.
Critical five years
“The next five years are critical to the future of our planet and resilience will be central to helping us survive and thrive,” says Seth Schultz, executive director of The Resilience Shift. “We need to be able to withstand and adapt to changing conditions and recover positively from shocks and stresses. Today’s announcement is the beginning of many radical shifts that will more appropriately prepare us to meet the challenges of the coming decade. We invite organisations to join us in our mission for a more resilient world”.
Simon Collins, Chair of Resilience First, said: “Resilience has been brought into sharp focus by Covid, but needs to be a permanent priority. The strategic partnership between these two organisations creates a platform with substantial convening power, reach and voice to help build resilience in businesses and the communities in which they operate.”
