Planning for the Future of Business: Why Climate Impact and Decarbonisation Belong at the Heart of Corporate Strategy.

Business leaders are steering through one of the most complex operating environments in decades. Markets are volatile, technologies are rewriting business models, and customer expectations are shifting faster than organisations can adapt. The businesses that will thrive are those that evolve their planning systems to anticipate—not react to—change. Climate considerations (rising regulatory pressures, physical climate impacts, and shifting investor and customer expectations) are now variable and disrupter CEOs and leadership teams need to both consider and act on. Integrating climate into the core of business planning isn’t about compliance or reputation management; it’s about unlocking new sources of growth, efficiency, and resilience.

For many leaders, climate feels like one burden too many. This is understandable given today's complexity, but this mindset is the real risk. Treating it as a separate initiative risk missing opportunities that competitors can seize. The new reality is that climate and core business value are inseparable. The same digital, supply chain, and operating model shifts required to cut emissions are the very changes that drive efficiency, attract investment, and de-risk your future. This article outlines the importance of evolving your existing business planning systems to turn climate pressure into a lasting source of competitive advantage.

Planning and Transformation in a Volatile World

Business transformation has always been about aligning an organisation’s strategy, operating model, and ways of working to the realities of tomorrow’s market. But many businesses are still running planning cycles built for a different era - ones designed to optimise predictability rather than manage volatility. Today, the variables have multiplied: economic uncertainty, digital disruption, supply chain fragility, workforce expectations, and now, the accelerating impacts of climate change. If planning is how a business looks forward and makes choices, then those choices must now include climate.

Bringing Climate into the Planning Cycle

Climate (and for many businesses, water) are no longer a separate sustainability concerns, they are a strategic business variable. Physical impacts such as extreme weather, transitional pressures from regulation and investors, and shifts in consumer demand all directly affect business performance. Embedding climate within the planning cycle is a must to align strategy, finance, operations, and innovation within a single, coherent decision system.

‘Climate performance’ is measurable ability of a business to deliver value while reducing exposure to climate risk and emissions intensity. This includes energy efficiency, supply chain resilience, and the capability to meet investor, regulatory, and customer expectations. When leaders build this into their planning rhythm, they can make trade-offs based on value, not virtue—balancing cash, carbon, and competitiveness.

Integrated planning shifts the focus from managing emissions as a cost, to engineering the business for lower carbon. This unlocks value by:

1. Creating Premium Demand (e.g., green-labelled products and services that command a price premium or win competitive tenders),

2. Driving Operational Efficiency (e.g., digitising supply chains to eliminate waste and energy use), and

3. Attracting Cheaper Capital (e.g., accessing sustainability-linked finance that rewards credible transition plans).

   
   

Strategic Opportunities to Grow Profit and Resilience

Integrating climate into business planning can surface strategic opportunities:

Example 1:  Cost out through efficiency: Unilever reports that since 2008, energy‑efficiency improvements have saved it well over €1 billion in operating costs—demonstrating how climate‑aligned investments deliver measurable cash benefits and long‑term resilience.

Example 2: New revenue from low‑carbon services: Maersk, one of the world’s largest shipping and logistics companies, has secured long‑term offtake agreements for green methanol to fuel its dual‑fuel vessels in the coming years - paving the path toward a premium, low‑emissions shipping service. This demonstrates how integrating climate into core strategy creates future‑ready products and customer loyalty while positioning the business ahead of regulation.

Other areas of opportunity include:

• Business models: Decarbonisation reshapes markets and value pools. Future revenues will flow from products and services that anticipate this shift.

• Operating models: Efficiency and sustainability increasingly converge. Digitised, low-waste, and agile operations reduce cost and risk simultaneously.

• Commercial strategy: Contracts and tenders now reward verifiable climate performance. Meeting these criteria opens new revenue channels and market access.

• Governance and incentives: Embedding climate metrics into governance ensures accountability, aligning leadership rewards with long-term resilience.

• Products and services: Innovation pipelines built with climate considerations future-proof portfolios, reducing stranded investments and ensuring relevance.

• Supply and value chains: From suppliers to customers to strategic partnerships with others in the industry, resilience and efficiency depend on understanding emissions and dependencies across the chain.

Adapting to a Changing Environment

Integrating climate into business planning isn’t only about reducing emissions—it’s also about preparing for how the environment itself is changing. For some businesses, that means factoring adaptation into plans: building resilience to heat, flooding, or water stress that can disrupt operations and supply chains. These aren’t abstract risks; they’re operational realities that affect productivity, cost, and customer confidence. Including climate and water considerations within the same planning processes already in use for cost, capacity, and continuity helps keep the business one step ahead—protecting value as well as creating it.

Companies are already disclosing hundreds of billions in potential financial exposure to water-related risks, and global demand for freshwater is expected to exceed supply by 40% by 2030. Building resilience into plans isn’t philanthropy—it’s good business sense. Building water and resilience guardrails into the planning cycle protects business continuity and strengthens investor confidence.

Different Businesses, Different Transitions

Every organisation starts from a different point. Geography, sector, and value chain position shape what matters most. For asset-heavy industries, the challenge may be energy and infrastructure. For service-based firms, it’s data, supply chains, and people. What unites them is the need to evolve planning so that climate is built in, not bolted on.

The Outcomes of Climate-Integrated Business Planning

When climate is integrated into the core planning process, outcomes are tangible and measurable:

• Identification of new growth opportunities driven by climate innovation and consumer demand.

• Lower operating costs through efficiency and reduced resource intensity.

• Reduced exposure to regulatory penalties and litigation.

• Better access to capital from investors seeking credible transition strategies.

• Greater resilience against supply chain disruption and physical climate impacts.

• Stronger brand trust and customer loyalty built on authentic progress.

  
  

These are not theoretical. They are already being realised by companies that view climate as a lever for competitiveness, not just compliance.

Future-Proof by Design

Leaders are already carrying an extraordinary load. The goal isn’t to add to it, but to make planning stronger and more joined-up so every decision works harder.

The next decade will not reward businesses that wait. Those who retrofit later will face higher costs, weaker resilience, and eroded brand equity. Those who evolve now -integrating climate into the planning processes they already trust - will build confidence, clarity, and advantage. Climate integration is not a distraction from transformation; it’s the discipline that strengthens it. It helps leaders plan smarter, act faster, and adapt continuously.

About the Author

Richard Clissold-Vasey is an experienced transformation leader and change management expert who is focused on helping Boards and executive teams to embed climate as a business variable and deliver net zero in a way that strengthens profit, resilience, and long-term competitiveness. His work combines decades of experience in large-scale transformation with a practical focus on helping organisations, industry and climate advisory groups move step-by-step toward climate-aligned growth.