Business In Action
Somerset is home to a diverse range of businesses, from agriculture to aerospace, retail to transport and everything in between. Many of these businesses are located in areas which are increasingly vulnerable to flooding and drought due to climate change.
The 2013/14 floods and the heatwave of 2018 both demonstrated how water – too much or too little – can affect the economy of our county. Business continuity, productivity and infrastructure can all be heavily impacted by flooding as well as drought.
Smaller businesses are often most vulnerable and find it hardest to adapt. With a remarkable 78% of Somerset’s businesses having fewer than 5 employees, it is essential that the business community works together to find solutions.
Adapting The Levels will be gaining insight from a wide range of partners and contributors, from community level to local Government, infrastructure experts and beyond, with the business community having a key role within this discussion.
The project hopes to encourage the business community to contribute their expertise to help shape the conversation around the way water is managed in our landscape and contribute to the development of a climate adaptation vision for the Somerset Levels and Moors.
Come and help shape the conversation – in both large and small ways, climate change is going to transform the way every sector operates, and Adapting the Levels can help businesses be prepared for our warming world.
Changing Climate, Changing Business: How tourism businesses in the South West are responding to climate change
Climate change is happening now in the South West and we are already vulnerable to extreme weather. We need to plan for both current and future vulnerability. This film highlights the impact of climate change on tourism businesses across South West England and the steps they are taking to combat its effects.
“The Somerset Levels are an ever-changing, largely man-made landscape, and what we see today is a snapshot in its long history. Over the millennia, from primitive times, those who have lived in this unique place, who know how to read its nature and who respect, understand and deeply value it, have learnt how to live alongside the challenges that come with calling this landscape home. The changing climate now requires these same people of the Somerset Levels to adapt again in order to create a new vision for a climate resilient future.”