Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2013
From Shared Risk to Shared Value: the Business Case for Disaster Risk Reduction


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246 Chapter 16
returns than those that do not, as certification is increasingly recognised and valued by consumers. This would provide a tangible incentive for businesses to invest in a way that reduces rather than creates shared disaster risks.
16.7
Epilogue
This report has made the business case for disaster risk reduction. The factoring of disaster risk considerations into business investment decisions is critical to achieve more resilient, competitive and sustainable economies and societies. And creating shared value through investing in disaster risk reduction can itself be a huge business opportunity. Perhaps the most important achievement of the HFA is an enhanced global understanding of the principal pillars of disaster risk management, particularly among national and local governments and civil society. This now has to mature into a real understanding of disasters not as exogenous threats to an otherwise functioning economic and social system, but as a material expression of serious fissures in our approach to economic growth and development.
This report highlights that unless this understanding is now integrated into business investment, the possibility that the HFA goal will be achieved is remote. The future of disaster risk hinges on the extent to which business embraces disaster risk reduction.
As we now approach 2015, international efforts are intensifying to formulate a new framework for disaster risk reduction: HFA2. Ensuring that the business case for disaster risk reduction is explicitly included in that framework will provide a critical incentive for the constructive engagement by business, on which future resilience, competitiveness and sustainability depend.
Notes
i PwC and Willis Re., for example.

ii The UNCTAD report refers to developing countries, which are low and middle-income countries.

iii https://www.understandrisk.org.

iv WEF competitiveness index; UN HABITAT urban prosperity index and UNCTAD FDI attractiveness index.

v http://inhabitat.com/how-americas-infrastructure-can-bestrengthened-against-future-natural-disasters/3/, http://www.worldchanging.com/cities/, http://www.ecogeek.org/, http://greenopolis.com/.
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