Preparing your business for the summer months

With summer just around the corner, we’re all looking forward to spending more time outdoors and enjoying the warmer weather. It’s important to keep an awareness of the potential hazards your business faces this time of year - especially with the increasing pressure of climate change and the likelihood of heatwaves and more intense weather patterns.^*

Heatwaves and dry spells can create highly flammable situations, increasing the risk of fires. During hot weather, appropriately storing equipment and stock, managing external waste and regularly undertaking premises inspections can make all the difference in mitigating against avoidable losses and business inefficiencies. The impact on your people, property and business operations could be endangered if the right precautions and risk management strategies haven’t been carried out. Fires spread rapidly and even if attended to quickly, the resulting effects of smoke contamination, corrosion, or discolouration can be expensive and time-consuming to deal with.


Business resilience and supply chain management is also a crucial consideration during the summer months. With our most recent Risk Insights data revealing that 45% of companies surveyed had reported supply chain disruption in the last year, ^** understanding the resilience and any seasonal changes to your supplies and suppliers helps you to provide the product or services as expected. Variances of some description are a factor for most businesses, but it’s understanding the peaks and troughs within a business cycle and the differing impacts incidents can have, depending on the time of year at which they occur, that will allow for effective management.
 

^{*Met Office – Effects of Climate Change}

^{**Aviva Risk Insights Report 2023}

^{Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0}