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Joining forces to drive global resilience best practice
More than 600 businesses, ranging from HSBC bank, Tesco, Arup, Atkins, WSP, Intel, Perkins&Will, The Crown Estate and NBC Universal International underpin this ground-breaking collaboration between The Resilience Shift and Resilience First. The businesses in this network, with annual revenues of more than $3 trillion, employ more than 10 million staff, and have a presence in more than 150 countries, value and invest in resilience.
This new global platform will be a catalyst for creating a safe, resilient, and sustainable future for all. They will form a single global hub to spur knowledge, advice and best practice, and bring forth innovative, resilient solutions to pervasive climate, economic and societal challenges by:
- Influencing government policy to help incentivise and enhance critical, climate resilient infrastructure;
- Stimulating resilience-focused finance and investment;
- Building an unrivalled global community that enables disparate industries and communities to work together to enhance public and private sector resilience;
- Creating cross-sector networks and working groups to share knowledge, advice and best practice, and make practical recommendations;
- Promoting global leadership on bold, decisive action on resilience.
This strategic partnership comes at a critical juncture for businesses, cities, and governments to effectively respond to sudden shocks, such as the COVID-19 global pandemic. While the world is still reeling from the pandemic and governments look to jumpstart global economies, prioritising and ensuring a resilient future is more important now than ever.
Leading science highlights that the world has less than 10 years to avert the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. Climate-related disasters alone have cost the world economy US$650bn over the past three years.
It is crucial for businesses and the public sector to work together in addressing future uncertainties. The newly combined forces of The Resilience Shift and Resilience First will help governments and businesses promote economic recovery and shape post-pandemic stimulus that builds resilience and accelerates global decarbonisation efforts.
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The next five years are critical to the future of our planet and resilience will be central to helping us survive and thrive. We need to be able to withstand and adapt to changing conditions and recover positively from shocks and stresses. Today’s announcement is the beginning of many radical shifts that will more appropriately prepare us to meet the challenges of the coming decade. We invite organisations to join us in our mission for a more resilient world.
Seth Schultz
CEO, The Resilience Shift
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Our aim at Lloyd’s Register Foundation is to make the world safer. Resilience to expected and unexpected challenges is a key part of that. We are proud that our support of both The Resilience Shift and Resilience First has resulted in an opportunity for these two organizations to bring their forces together to accelerate resilience theory into practice, through a global community of action. This partnership enables organisations and industries to work together to scale up the changes needed to deliver a resilient and safer world.
Richard Clegg
Chief Executive, Lloyd’s Register Foundation
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Over the last year, the importance of resilience has been made starkly clear; from firms enabling us all to adapt to online work or adapting to online product and services, through to healthcare services responding to the massive increase in intensive care cases, and even energy and transport networks operating on a skeleton staff. This ability to adapt to and recover from crisis or change will only become more critical as we navigate the implications of climate change, digital transformation, a growing population and less resources over the next 20 years. I am delighted that today the Resilience Shift joins forces with Resilience First bringing business and infrastructure providers together with a shared ambition to create a safer world.
Dame Jo da Silva
Global Sustainable Development Leader, Arup
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Resilience has been brought into sharp focus by Covid, but needs to be a permanent priority. The strategic partnership between these two organisations creates a platform with substantial convening power, reach and voice to help build resilience in businesses and the communities in which they operate.
Simon Collins
Chair, Resilience First
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About The Resilience Shift
The Resilience Shift, supported by Lloyd’s Register Foundation and Arup, has built a global community of interest from its roots in providing new collaborations, knowledge, tools and approaches to ensure a transformative approach to the resilience of critical infrastructure.
About Resilience First
Resilience First is a highly respected business-oriented membership organisation, created by London First and supported by blue-chip Champions and key stakeholders in a cross-section of industry sectors, with a mission to advance resilience best practice across urban business communities.
Why join together now?
Both organisations have grown significantly since they were founded, and now are seeking to scale up their impact. Combining our forces is a route to driving resilience best practice at scale globally, in a world facing deep uncertainties and complex interdependencies.
What is the new governance structure?
We are keeping our current governance structures and are presently aligning our organisations. A final integration of our governance will be completed by the end of 2021.
What is the aim of the combined organisation?
The combined organisation’s goals are:
- To ensure resilience is on the agenda of every organisation;
- To support the shift to transformational change;
- To enshrine resilience in everyday thinking and practice.
What are the benefits?
Joining Resilience First with The Resilience Shift brings significant benefits to both organisations and their stakeholders, specifically in the following ways, by:
- Combining expertise, knowledge, skills and tools, to provide stronger and more compelling leadership in the area of resilience;
- Enabling the convening of multi-stakeholder groups in almost any focus area, and worldwide;
- Bringing together business expertise with specialist resilience knowledge;
- Increasing the knowledge base, the channels and the reach of our networks to share combined content;
- Providing the opportunity for funding partners to support a globally relevant and credible network;
- Strengthening the combined network – growing appeal and reach by bridging philanthropists and the private sector with engineering and technical audiences.
Who is in the combined network for the organisations?
The global reach of the combined network includes:
- Over 600 corporates in the private sector from Resilience First’s network of Associates and 250 Members;
- Over 50 firms pledged to support the International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure (created by The Resilience Shift) including its six founding organisations;
- Together with The Resilience Shift founders, Lloyds Register Foundation and Arup, partners and grantees, and other organisations in its wider community of interest of over 600 organisations.
What sort of work is the combined organisation going to do?
Its current work programme focuses on a suite of change drivers:
- Fostering cross-sectoral integration;
- Guidance, tools and publications for infrastructure resilience;
- Stimulating resilience investments and finance;
- Building education and capacity for next-gen leadership;
- Enhancing private and public sector resilience across communities and cities.
What are the joint plans for 2021?
We are already developing joint initiatives including technical projects, and a programme of events and communications. Other activities will be developed in consultation with our community during 2021 and will be gradually evolving alongside our existing programmes and services.
What will change?
The two organisations will seek to launch joint initiatives throughout 2021 and will accelerate the development a global community of practice to take action on resilience.
New sector-led networks will also be created to spearhead resilient and sustainable solutions for those industries.
I am already a member of Resilience First, what will this mean?
Existing members will not have a change in benefits. The combined platform will refine member benefits moving forward and will seek to bring on board new members as joint initiatives come online. See membership benefits.
I am interested in becoming a member
To find out more about membership and our work to build resilience with the private sector, please contact Beena Chester at bchester@resiliencefirst.co.uk.
I am interested in finding out more
See more about the current programmes of the two organisations at their websites:
