UKCRIC was delighted to be invited to participate in Deloitte’s 2024 Crisis and Resilience conference. Each year this invitation-only conference brings together leading professionals and thinkers to explore the nature of crisis, the power of human resilience, and pathways to a more resilient future. The November 2024 conference featured a range of speakers who shared their real-world experiences of navigating macro challenges. Joanne Leach, UKCRIC Executive Manager, and Liz Varga, UKCRIC Principal Investigator, summarise key themes.
The event started with perspectives on geopolitical crossroads, economic resilience and the UK’s resilience priorities. At the time of the conference the ink was still wet on the outcome of the American election and the race to identify the implications of a second Trump presidency was only just underway. Speakers took a balanced view and focussed upon the lessons to be learnt from Trump’s first presidency, casting forwards to what they might mean for his next presidency. Discussions addressed the status and role of the US dollar as the dominant global currency, the lack of fiscal responsibility due to the endless global demand for US assets, and the current dominance of policy over technology. Three ‘vicious circles’ were highlighted amongst general agreement that greater volatility and threat seem inevitable:
The question on everyone’s mind was, of course, how to manage resilience in the face of volatility. For UK companies, getting closer to the EU would improve organisational resilience through international integration (Brexit was described at one point as “an economic own goal”). Getting out of disciplinary and sectoral siloes was also recommended. However, the slow rate of organisational change and the speed with which Trump is expected to act will make long-term planning and investment challenging and will further dimmish the impact of international agencies, which are already underpowered and underfinanced.
Following the mid-morning break the focus shifted to the consideration of other exogenous drivers of change, namely climate change, urban sustainability, and public health. The impact of human-induced climate change is long established and increasingly evident, but the cascading dependencies are only now becoming apparent. For example, heat waves (and their prolonged build up) simultaneously escalate risk of fire and the demand for water, which itself leads to reduced water pressure and diminished fire service efficacy; when rain eventually falls on parched ground it leads to flash flooding exacerbated by a lack of flood zones due to overdevelopment. Such realities will not disappear even if the legislation and standards to support climate adaptation and mitigation do. Organisations need to continue to build and maintain infrastructures and city systems to the highest sustainability standards if they are to reduce their exposure to climate change risk.
Covid-19 brought into sharp relief failures in public health preparedness. Most notably scenario planning (not really planning for the worst case), trust in experts, transparency of information, and rigorous decision making (in the face of incomplete and constantly changing information). It also demonstrated great successes, such as rapid global collaboration, innovation and experimentation, and flexing regulations for the public good. The imminent risk to life posed by Covid-19 has faded but there remain potential future risks to global public health, such as other pandemics and antimicrobial resistance. It is not clear everything there was to be learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic has made it into resilience strategies and the fear is that the next test is not that far away.
The afternoon session focussed upon real-world resilience stories. Chatham House Rules prohibiting the attribution of content to any speaker, attendee or organisation impair reporting on this session. What can be said, though, is that when a crisis befalls an organisation, leadership that is sensitive to and empathetic with affected stakeholders is a resilience differentiator. The stories were fascinating and if you are lucky enough to be invited to next year’s event I encourage you to attend.