Apart from the environmental impacts, climate change affects businesses in various ways, for example:

Loss of Customers and market share

Consumer Preferences are changing. Lagging action will become a larger issue as consumer concerns and preferences shift. A recent study identified the airline, food and beverages sectors as the most vulnerable to reputation damage due to climate change inaction and concluded that climate change would become a mainstream consumer issue by 2010.

Legal Risks

Lawsuits and fines are becoming more common. Similar to the multi-billion dollar lawsuits against the cigarette industry, no industry will be exempt from legal action if they continue to have a huge impact on GHG emissions and are not being seen to be improving their operations. E.g. The State of California has sued GM, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota and Nissan, on the grounds that greenhouse gases from the companies’ vehicles have caused billions of dollars in damages. In the UK, six companies including Mars, were given fines for not doing enough to curtail their emissions.