Providing decision support on climate change adaptation measures to Indian SME

The impacts of climate change are already affecting Indian companies today. This is not only due to India's geographic and climatic characteristics, but also due to its challenges regarding infrastructure and socio-economic conditions. In the private sector, both direct and indirect climate change impacts may pose severe risks. Direct impacts are, for example, extreme weather events and heat periods as they cause damage to buildings and lead to a more frequent breakdown of machinery. An interruption of the supply chain due to flooding of transport routes, altered legal requirements, increased insurance fees or changing customer preferences are examples of indirect impacts.

Indian companies, particularly small and medium enterprises (SME), are therefore interested in identifying measures that can best enhance their resilience against the impacts of climate change. Such measures have to be assessed according to their effectiveness and efficiency, for example by applying cost-benefit or multi-criteria analyses. A GIZ assignment, which built on several projects on private sector adaptation, sought to make a methodology for such assessments available to SMEs. Usability was of high importance for the SME target group. This necessitated a practical and intuitive approach. adelphi used its own experience with trainings, tools and studies on adaptation measures for companies and GIZ expertise to support the development and dissemination of such a methodology among SMEs in India.

In the course of this project, an Excel tool for the monetary assessment of climate risks and opportunities for companies has been developed and disseminated. With the help of the tool it can be calculated whether a particular adaptation measure is economically viable. adelphi integrated the tool into the existing Climate Expert approach that allows companies to develop an adaptation strategy. Thus, the training materials for the Climate Expert now also contain a chapter on the economic assessment approach. For the dissemination of the approach adelphi presented the method during three workshops to companies and consulting firms in India. In addition, adelphi tested the economic assessment approach in two Indian companies and summarized the results in two case studies.