Small businesses are key to building resilient cities

As I write these lines, an exceptional heatwave is sweeping across Europe, putting pressure on power systems, transport networks, hospitals and the workers who keep small businesses operating. My thoughts are with the people most at risk, but also with the cities and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that will only overcome these challenges by working together.

I find myself asking whether cities and SMEs can access the operational resilience tools – continuity plans, crisis exercises, risk assessments and risk transfer approaches – that have traditionally been available mainly to large companies and major consultancies. With the right ecosystem and practical guidance, these tools can also support the smallest firms.

I have been reflecting on this after helping to implement the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Strengthening the Disaster Resilience of SMEs programme. Working alongside the UNDRR team, we helped turn ideas about improving resilience into practical action.

Three very different cities – Bridgetown, Sendai and Barcelona – were selected to work with their SMEs. In Barcelona, the project followed a complete resilience-building journey: we began with a landscape study to identify preparedness gaps and capture the experiences of business owners. We then brought together the city’s resilience stakeholders to build a stronger support ecosystem.

From there, we helped business owners develop their first continuity plans, transformed those plans into practical crisis exercises and trained local facilitators to continue delivering the work. We also exchanged experiences with other cities and focused on creating lasting capacity beyond the project period.

Discovering the businesses that keep communities going

Three moments from the project remain particularly memorable.

The landscape study was important because it introduced approaches that had not previously been part of Barcelona’s resilience discussions. Meeting business owners was equally valuable because it transformed an abstract concept of “resilience” into something personal and practical. Finally, the crisis exercises demonstrated a new way of preparing for disruption – one that involved practising scenarios that, unexpectedly, soon became reality.

The study itself was challenging. It was not easy to encourage SMEs to engage with concepts that were new to them. Together with the city, we mapped the resilience ecosystem, including business associations, insurers, universities and risk professionals, and identified where support was needed.

The findings highlighted a major gap: more than 80 per cent of small businesses had experienced the effects of a hazard within five years, yet only 1.5 per cent had a written continuity plan. The challenge was not a lack of willingness. It was the absence of practical tools and support to help businesses act.

The recommendations were clear: SMEs need accessible tools, they need to be included in decision-making processes, and preparedness must provide value. One longer-term idea was the creation of a “resilient business” label that could recognize preparedness through potential benefits such as improved access to finance, insurance incentives or public procurement opportunities.

The objective was simple: make resilience something worth investing in, so that these efforts continue beyond individual projects.

Resilience is about people, not only plans

The real protagonists of this work were the business owners and SME professionals themselves. Their experiences reminded me of my own family history. My grandfather was a carpenter in Sants, and his small workshop, like many others, eventually closed. He taught me something that no risk model can fully capture: a business is never only a business.

A business represents a family, livelihoods, essential services and a community’s identity.

When a major blackout affected Spain and Portugal in April 2025, I thought of this lesson while speaking with a baker who worked to save her dough so that neighbours could still buy bread, and a hotel owner who returned to traditional iron keys after electronic locks failed.

Sometimes resilience is not about advanced technology. Sometimes it is about having a simple backup solution that works – and people who are committed to supporting their communities.

Practising resilience before a crisis

Throughout the project, I was inspired by the work of resilience practitioners in Paris. In 2023, I observed “Paris à 50°C”, an exercise that explored how the city could respond to an extreme heat scenario. Paris has since shared this approach with other cities and proposed measures to strengthen preparedness for extreme heat.

Barcelona drew on these experiences when developing its own Heat Plan, including measures to protect people during high temperatures.

Building on these examples, we introduced crisis simulations as a practical way to help SME owners prepare. This was particularly valuable in sectors such as tourism, where the idea of a disaster scenario can often feel distant until it happens.

We started with a simple continuity plan and turned it into a practical exercise. Even the smallest firms were able to test their responses using accessible digital tools.

The approach was later replicated in Venice after cities from UNDRR’s  Making Cities Resilient 2030 network joined the Barcelona SME Resilience Forum and the training was brought to  Venice Climate Week .

In both Barcelona and Venice, tourism businesses worked through the same scenario: a blackout during a heatwave. However, the challenges they faced were different. Venice had to consider lagoon logistics, while Barcelona faced the pressures of a dense urban tourism environment.

What was striking was how frequently these scenarios reflected real events soon afterwards. A blackout occurred shortly after we had tested a similar scenario. When we simulated a hailstorm, Barcelona issued early-warning alerts during a major smart-city event soon afterwards. The heatwave scenario we explored in Barcelona and Venice is now affecting businesses across Europe.

We were not predicting the future. We were preparing businesses for risks that are becoming more frequent and intense.

Bring resilience support to your city

What motivated me most was not only supporting individual SMEs, but also helping build an ecosystem that could continue beyond the project. Working with UNDRR, we helped create connections between businesses, government, researchers and resilience practitioners.

Since then, business owners have developed continuity plans. The municipality has started integrating SMEs into its Climate Plan. Other stakeholders have contributed by analysing risks, developing practical guidance and exploring ways to recognise resilient businesses.

The ecosystem we hoped to create was beginning to take shape.

The lessons from Barcelona, Venice and Paris are relevant for cities everywhere. Three actions stand out:

1. First, understand the reality of SMEs. Effective resilience support must be based on the risks businesses actually face, not assumptions about their needs.
2. Second, engage businesses as partners. SMEs should have a voice in resilience planning because they understand the challenges facing their communities.
3. Third, practise together. Plans on paper are not enough. Exercises help businesses understand what action looks like when disruption occurs.

As I finish writing, the heatwave continues, placing pressure on the same systems and businesses that this project aimed to strengthen. The scenarios we practised are becoming reality.

Small businesses help hold our cities and communities together. It is time we strengthened their ability to withstand shocks in return.

The next crisis exercise is already becoming reality. The time to prepare is now.

Ignasi Fontanals is a Barcelona-based resilience strategist and entrepreneur working across urban and business resilience. He co-founded a university spin-off that developed an operational urban-resilience platform deployed in three European cities and is a guest lecturer in smart cities master's programmes in France. As a UNDRR consultant, he contributed to SME and public-sector resilience initiatives across several European cities, and has worked with technology companies on crisis management, emergency communications and water resilience. His focus is on digitalising resilience and risk management to make it measurable, operational and investable. He also leads work on the digitalisation and governance of municipal urban services, from waste collection to street cleaning.