Companion Perception: Emma Littlewood from 51toCarbonZero explains why information may help CFOs higher handle dangers, determine alternatives for progress, and construct a stronger case for funding
This 12 months, there’s been an enormous uptick within the variety of conversations I’ve had with companies about local weather danger, prompted by a major rise in consciousness of the bodily local weather dangers to enterprise operations. Capgemini’s 2026 survey of two,100 senior executives at massive organisations reveals the same upward development: 68 per cent say their organisation now actively prioritises local weather adaptation, up from 56 per cent a 12 months earlier.
Curiosity in UK Sustainability Reporting Requirements (UK SRS) has additionally noticeably elevated, though it is nonetheless voluntary for many organisations, whereas the FCA has now confirmed adjustments to the UK Itemizing Guidelines requiring sure listed corporations to report in opposition to it from January 2027.
UK SRS is a local weather danger reporting framework primarily based on ISSB’s IFRS, that asks corporations to elucidate the dangers and alternatives that would have an effect on their money flows, entry to finance and price of capital. For CFOs, this makes UK SRS greater than one other reporting requirement. It is a possibility to grasp the place local weather change might have an effect on monetary efficiency – and the place funding might ship returns.
Local weather impacts and the way far they have been quantified
Within the Capgemini survey of greater than 700 corporations with revenues over $1bn, 87 per cent report climate-related provide chain disruptions, and 77 per cent say local weather change has already affected their income.
Capgemini’s survey considers massive, well-resourced firms, but even there, a major hole has opened up between rising funding and the evaluation wanted to successfully direct that capital. Simply 15 per cent have quantified the monetary affect of climate-related disruption on their enterprise.
Throughout UK companies extra extensively, the place is weaker nonetheless. The October 2026 ONS Enterprise Insights and Affect survey discovered that 73 per cent of UK companies had not assessed any local weather change dangers.
For a CFO, the hole between publicity and quantification is essentially the most revealing discovering: an publicity that hasn’t been costed cannot be priced into forecasts, capital plans or conversations with lenders. The identical self-discipline needs to be utilized to the upside, or companies danger lacking alternatives to chop prices and open up new markets.
Local weather danger and present danger processes
A problem I come throughout steadily is the separation of local weather from different enterprise dangers. The way in which the TCFD suggestions have been offered meant that local weather danger was arrange as a separate workstream with its personal governance and report, regardless of clauses requiring organisations to embed local weather dangers into present processes. Many corporations nonetheless run it individually to the overall danger register, and see it as a sustainability difficulty quite than a monetary one.
As a result of enterprise interruption is without doubt one of the high three enterprise dangers, together with cyber assaults and AI, it is important to embed local weather into central processes. If an organization would not alter its operations to local weather breakdown, dangers akin to laws and market adjustments might develop into a footnote.
Discovering the alternatives throughout operations and provide chains
Deal with climate-related alternatives is ultimately beginning to achieve momentum. Within the Capgemini survey, 69 per cent of organisations report a constructive return on their sustainability initiatives, up from 49 per cent in 2025.
Recognizing these alternatives requires creativity, and that is the place enterprise leaders can actually excel. To begin a enterprise or be a CFO or CEO, you might have to have the ability to visualise the longer term and the way your corporation matches into it. What’s going to individuals want, or need, or not have sufficient of? What might we alter in our providing to make the corporate extra resilient and worthwhile?
At 51toCarbonZero we constructed our AI-powered 51 Delta Intelligence platform round these questions. What makes the Delta totally different is its concentrate on alternatives: it offers a strategic funding roadmap that maximises climate-related alternatives whereas diminishing dangers, throughout belongings, suppliers and product strains.
Provide chains are sometimes the place dangers and alternatives are least seen. Delta profiles every provider’s bodily danger utilizing geospatial projections, and estimates the monetary publicity if provide have been interrupted underneath IPCC situations, so procurement and finance can resolve the place to diversify, maintain extra inventory or work with a provider by itself resilience, earlier than a disruption forces the choice.
Throughout actual property portfolios, Delta benchmarks every website’s vitality use and carbon and prices each discount motion by capital outlay, annual financial savings and payback, so CFOs can rank it in opposition to different calls for on capital. Bodily danger is proven as an annual monetary worth in danger, which places adaptation spending on the identical footing as an insurance coverage premium. The result’s a suggestion for every website, from make investments or adapt to plan an exit.
An AI-powered platform is transformative, integrating sustainability, finance and danger right into a consolidated roadmap that places corporations in a a lot stronger place.
Getting ready whereas reporting is voluntary
None of this wants a brand new committee or a big programme. I would recommend beginning with what’s already underway:
Add local weather dangers and alternatives to the prevailing danger register.
Use a devoted device akin to 51 Delta Intelligence to show information right into a strategic roadmap ranked and weighted to the CFO’s priorities, akin to low capital outlay or the shortest payback.
Put the findings into the following finances and forecast.
From disclosure to strategic monetary choices
Finally, the worth of UK SRS lies in what companies do with the data. By utilizing local weather information to tell monetary choices, CFOs can higher handle dangers, determine alternatives for progress and construct a stronger case for funding. It additionally offers the board the reply to a extra helpful query than what needs to be disclosed: what ought to the enterprise do otherwise to succeed?
Emma Littlewood is director of coverage & analysis at 51toCarbonZero.
This text is sponsored by 51toCarbonZero.
