Extreme Heat Dialogue Series for Companies

The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) and Resilience First have launched the Extreme Heat Dialogue Series for Companies to help large corporations build resilience to the growing risks of extreme heat through a year-long program of virtual foundational dialogues and implementation-focused workshops for senior sustainability, risk, and operations leaders across industry sectors.

About the Extreme Heat Dialogue Series for Companies

As periods of extreme heat become more frequent and intense, corporations are beginning to see the impacts on their bottom line. Even as awareness of these impacts grows, the path towards resilience isn’t always clear. Our goal with this dialogue series is to help large corporations understand how extreme heat affects their operations, workforce, supply chains, and communities, and take practical steps to improve their resilience. 

The Extreme Heat Dialogue Series for Companies is a year-long virtual program that includes at least six foundational dialogues designed for senior sustainability, risk, and operations leaders at major corporations, in addition to at least two implementation-focused workshops for smaller cohorts of companies. This dialogue is part of C2ES’s Corporate Climate Resilient Pathways Initiative, which engages companies to help advance resilience to the physical impacts of climate change across operations and value chains, and in the communities where companies operate. This year’s series builds on our 2025 Corporate Climate Resilience Foresight Series, convened in partnership with Resilience First, which examined climate resilience more broadly across corporate dimensions. 

Program Details

Virtual Dialogues (private – invitation only)

May 14th 12-1:45 pm ET: Understanding Extreme Heat’s Impact: A Lens on Workforce, Human Health, and the Bottom Line | REGISTER

Recommended for individuals on sustainability, human resources, risk management, and operations teams, in addition to any others who are interested.

  • Agenda
    • Introduction (Verena Radulovic)
    • Crash course on the science of heat and health (Grace Wickerson, Federation of American Scientists)
    • Panel
      • The economics of heat and health in the workplace (Jisung Park, UPenn)
      • Heat in the city (Jane Gilbert, Atlantic Council Climate Resilience Center, Miami-Dade County)
      • Heat at home (Lisa Patel, Stanford)
    • Forum for the Future spotlight
    • Breakout group discussions
      • Sample discussion questions:
        • Which of the heat-health pathways presented — productivity losses, absenteeism, heat illness, community health spillovers — resonates most with your company’s current exposure?
        • Have you tried to quantify the economic cost of heat on your workforce — through productivity data, healthcare claims, absenteeism tracking, or other metrics? What has worked, and where do the gaps in your data lie?
        • What is one thing your company is already doing on workforce heat resilience that you think others in this room could learn from? What is one thing you’d most want to learn from peers?
    • Conclusion and next steps

June 9th 11 am – 12:30 pm ET: Understanding Extreme Heat’s Impact: A lens on supply chains, operations, and infrastructure | REGISTER

Recommended for individuals on supply chain, procurement, operations, logistics, and sustainability teams, in addition to any others who are interested.

June 17th 1 – 3 pm ET: Governance and Accountability for Extreme Heat: From intent to practice | REGISTER

Recommended for individuals on government affairs, strategy, and sustainability teams, in addition to any others who are interested.

See proposed topics for the next three dialogues below. 

Our intention in creating this series is to explore the full arc of how extreme heat affects companies across their operations, workforce, and value chains, as well as across different parts of the world. We welcome additional ideas for how to explore the full breadth of how companies can understand and build resilience to extreme heat. 

  • Using Data and Understanding How to Assess Extreme Heat Risk Across Operations, Value Chains, and Communities (Date TBD)
  • Extreme Heat, Equity, and Community Resilience: A Lens on the Global South and Lessons for the Global North (Date TBD)
  • Financing Extreme Heat Resilience: Mechanisms, Geographies, and the Private Sector’s Role (Date TBD)

Deep Dive Workshops (private – invitation only, limited registration)

Deep Dive #1 – Extreme Heat and Supply Chain Resilience: A Research Workshop Series for Global Companies 

C2ES, in partnership with N4EA, is convening a workshop-based research project for 12-20 companies with specific interest in supply chain and operational risk. This deep dive will include several convenings over the course of 3-6 months and would commence in early July and go until the late fall. The program is targeted towards companies in pharmaceuticals/ healthcare, food & beverage/agriculture, or technology and data infrastructure, though we are accepting all expressions of interest.

  • About the Workshop Series

    Corporate supply chains are global, interdependent, and increasingly vulnerable to extreme heat. Recent heat waves in China have shut down manufacturing facilities, cold-chain failures at transshipment points are increasing during temperature spikes, and crop yields are declining in heat-stressed regions. For companies in pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, and technology and data infrastructure, extreme heat creates both acute operational risk and strategic resilience challenges.

    In tandem with C2ES’s virtual dialogues on extreme heat, C2ES is convening a virtual workshop-based research project for companies with specific interest in supply chain and operational risk. This program is designed to:

    1. Map supply chain heat exposure through structured tabletop exercises that walk through indicative scenarios at each stage of your supply chain (sourcing, manufacturing, transportation, distribution).
    2. Identify decision-useful information for tracking and communicating supply chain risk internally (across operations, finance, and strategy teams) and externally (to investors, insurers, and stakeholders)
    3. Develop actionable metrics that translate supply chain risk assessment into operational heat resilience planning and corporate disclosure

    Throughout these workshops, we will focus our sessions on (1) what makes risk and resilience information decision-useful for different stakeholders and why, and (2) where and how to respond to infrastructure interdependencies that can increase vulnerability.

  • Who Should Participate

    Companies with global operations in pharmaceuticals/healthcare, food & beverage/agriculture, or technology and data infrastructure – sectors with inherent temperature sensitivity across their value chains.

    We invite cross-functional participation: operations/logistics, supply chain/procurement, sustainability/ESG, and enterprise risk teams are all relevant. Given the interdisciplinary nature of supply chain resilience, we encourage companies to send 1-2 representatives who can speak to both operational realities and strategic planning.

    All companies with heat-exposed supply chains are welcome, regardless of where you are in your resilience journey. This is designed as a co-learning environment where early-stage and advanced practitioners both contribute.

  • Time Commitment
    • One 2-hour sector-specific workshop (June 2026)
    • Pre-session homework: ~2-3 hours to map your supply chain, and identify heat vulnerabilities at a high-level; no asset-specific information is required.
    • Pre-reads: ~2-3 hours reviewing sector research and scenario materials
    • Follow-up engagement: ~2 hours for findings review and feedback session (September 2026)
    • Total: ~10 hours over 4 months (June-September 2026)
  • What Participants Will Receive
    • Sector-specific research brief synthesizing existing heat risk and resilience practices in your industry 
    • Tabletop scenario frameworks adaptable for internal planning 
    • Interim findings summary from cross-sector workshops (July 2026) 
    • Draft decision-useful metrics for supply chain heat resilience (September 2026) 
    • Final research report with findings and case studies (Early 2027) 
    • Peer network of companies working on similar challenges across sectors 
  • How to Express Interest

    Contact Tessa Ide at idet@C2ES.org with the following information, or schedule a 15-minute exploratory call to discuss fit and expectations:

    1. Name, organization, and role
    2. Primary interest in participating (e.g., mapping supply chain exposure, developing internal metrics, learning from peer companies)
    3. Has your company experienced a supply chain disruption attributable to extreme heat? (Examples helpful but not required)
    4. Has your company completed a climate-related supply chain risk assessment previously?
    5. What are you hoping to gain from this program?

    Registration deadline: June 15, 2026

    Workshop dates: Early July 2026

    This workshop series is conducted in partnership with N4EA, a global supply chain intelligence firm.

Deep Dive #2 – TBD 

We will be creating at least one additional deep dive based on feedback and interest from participants. 

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