In this Global Insight episode of the On Aon podcast, Aon leaders examine why extreme heat is emerging as a critical business challenge that demands greater visibility, preparedness and investment. Against the backdrop of heat waves and wildfires across North America and Europe, the discussion explores how heat can create significant financial and operational impacts across organizations, even when physical damage is limited or unseen. The conversation highlights how heat can disrupt workforce productivity, energy systems, infrastructure, supply chains and business continuity simultaneously. It also explores how organizations can use climate analytics, engineering insight, scenario planning and risk transfer to better understand exposure, make more informed capital decisions and build resilience that helps them stay ahead of evolving climate risks. Key Takeaways: Extreme heat is becoming a serious business risk. Its impact extends well beyond employee wellbeing, creating challenges across operations, supply chains, infrastructure, energy systems and financial performance. Organizations need a clearer understanding of how heat affects their facilities, suppliers, workforce’s performance and critical dependencies across their value chain. Climate analytics, risk engineering, adaptation planning and risk transfer can help organizations prioritize investments, protect operations and stay ahead of increasingly frequent heat-related disruptions. Experts in this episode: Liz Henderson, Global Head of Climate Risk Advisory, Aon Josh Turner, Climate Advisory Product Manager, Aon Key Moments: (02:20) Why extreme heat is rising on leadership agendas, including the growing financial exposure associated with higher temperatures, aging infrastructure and more frequent heat events. (6:05) How heat creates cascading business impacts, from workforce productivity and construction delays to equipment performance, energy demand, cooling costs and transportation disruption. (20:20) How organizations can move from awareness to action through exposure analysis, mitigation and adaptation planning and risk transfer strategies that support long-term resilience. Soundbites: Liz Henderson: “It's a risk amplifier in general. So across different industries like the food industry or construction, they might be worried about worker productivity, business downtime, crop impacts. And the underlying cause of those things is climate change risks and things like extreme heat.” Josh Turner: “Extreme heat waves are becoming more common as the climate is shifting in ways that make historical averages a pretty unreliable guide for planning.”
