City of Melbourne must combat heatwaves to protect businesses

The City of Melbourne has released a report into the impact of January’s heatwave on businesses. With the frequency and intensity of heatwaves expected to increase, it was determined that an understanding of the economic impacts of such events on businesses is needed.    

Conducted by Sweeney Research, the report estimated that businesses in the Melbourne municipality lost approximately $37 million in revenue. The survey of more than 600 local businesses found an overall decline in revenue of almost 10%, with the sectors impacted the most being retail, food and beverage and accommodation.

Other key findings from the research include:

• 59% reported an impact on the comfort, motivation or moral of their workforce.
• 40% reported an impact on the reliability of their workforce.
• 62% of businesses experienced additional operational costs (such as increased air-conditioning operation), while 7% reported air-conditioning failures.
• 44% of businesses took action to help staff cope with the heat.

More than half of businesses (52%) are very or fairly concerned about future heatwave impacts on their business. This reinforces the need for City of Melbourne to continue to adapt to a changing climate, with the city’s environment portfolio chair, Councillor Arron Wood, saying Council is firmly focused on building Melbourne’s resilience to climate impacts.

“We’re doubling tree canopy cover for our urban forest, upgrading drainage infrastructure, funding more energy-efficient buildings, implementing planning processes to minimise climate risk and installing various water-sensitive urban design initiatives,” Cr Wood said. “Heatwaves don’t only impact our city economically; heat-related illness also kills more Australians each year than any other natural disaster, so City of Melbourne has identified this as a priority issue we must prepare better for.

“In December 2013, the Rockefeller Foundation announced Melbourne as one of the first 33 cities to participate in its 100 Resilient Cities Program. This program is a significant opportunity to further enhance Melbourne’s ability to cope with heatwaves like the one we experienced in January.”

As part of the program, Melbourne will receive support to recruit a Chief Resilience Officer, whose role will be to create a Resilience Strategy for metropolitan Melbourne. Industry experts gathered on 1 April to pinpoint what Melbourne needs to become a more resilient city.

The research report can be viewed here