Highlights
Some prominent businesses expect that climate change will bring opportunities for growth, but also risks, including problems in raw material supplies of even such American basics as coffee and jeans.
Levi Strauss & Co., for example, makes jeans in 45 countries, and most of them are feeling the impacts of climate change from flooding or droughts, said Amy Leonard, a senior vice president. Levi Strauss and other businesses have a long-term interest in making sure that their supplies of raw materials won’t be damaged by climate change, she said.
Starbucks Coffee Co. has been using renewable energy and conserving power in its stores for many years, but only in the last couple has the company started to look at how climate change might affect its supply chain, said Ben Packard, the company’s vice president of global responsibility. Small coffee farmers already are talking about climate impacts, he said.
“We absolutely view this as a critical risk of our business,” Packard said.
The source article Businesses see risk, opportunity in climate change was published November 17, 2010 by MiamiHerald.com .
