Big Companies Increasing Climate Change Efforts While Suppliers Lag

Experts see a world facing greater risks this year than last, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Risks 2013, its latest annual assessment of global risk, and they rank environmental risks among the likeliest to manifest over the next 10 years. The study asked 1,000 experts from industry, government, academia and civil society to rate the likelihood and the impact of 50 different risks, evenly divided among five categories: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological. Of the five most likely risks, the top two are economic: severe income disparity and chronic fiscal imbalances. The third, rising greenhouse gas emissions, is environmental. And the fourth and fifth – water supply crises and mismanagement of population aging – are classified as societal.

Two of these risks – chronic fiscal imbalances and water supply crises – are also among the five risks ranked as having the highest impact should they occur. The others are major systemic failure (economic), food shortage crises (societal) and diffusion of weapons of mass destruction (geopolitical). The risk of water supply crises can also...

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