Engaging business with climate change

A project by University of Exeter PhD Candidate Katharina Kaesehage has helped a number of Cornish businesses to engage with issues around climate change.

Katharina’s project showed that businesses struggle to engage with climate change issues in a meaningful, profitable and sustainable way compared to the practises of ‘green’ businesses.

Katharina investigated the wider cultural and physical impacts of climate change, developing recommendations for its communication between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in order to enhance businesses opportunities.

The project examined thirty SMEs in Cornwall, who are engaging with climate change from a business prospective and explored why and how these businesses approach the knowledge gap between climate change and business practice.

Amy Hurst, Energy Officer for the Eden Project, said: “Kathi’s work is really impressive, getting everyone into one room and discussing these issues was a fantastic achievement. I think the lack of solutions and continuation of challenges that happened goes to prove that this research is really necessary.”

Dissemination of this research is demonstrating not only that knowledge exchanges are of great value and importance for SMEs to be able to innovate but also for the future planning of Cornwall’s economy.

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