Executive summary As the earth experiences anthropogenic climate change, weather events are becoming more extreme, frequent and variable. Each country must tailor its response to these growing threats based on its specific circumstances. Certain interventions, including early warning systems (EWS), have proven effective across many contexts. EWS can provide preemptive warnings about upcoming hazardous events. They project probable impacts, efficiently communicate information and ensure that people know how to stay safe.1 Central to EWS are the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) being the authoritative source of weather, water and climate information and warnings. EWS consists of a broad ecosystem of public and private sector players that work together to deliver timely and effective warnings to those at risk. Multi-hazard EWS have been proven to save lives and can reduce economic losses. Despite this, there is a coverage gap in EWS in some areas. To close this gap, businesses need more awareness of the opportunities, and governments must develop strategies to engage them further. Opportunities for businesses are manifold and can be found in areas such as data collaboration, climate services or risk analytics. Businesses can either provide these services or use them to create new forms of value for customers in many different domains. This paper presents a framework for understanding the various roles that businesses can play in EWS (users, vendors, partners or innovators) along each of the four steps in the EWS value chain – risk knowledge, monitoring and warnings, communications and dissemination, and response capability. Then, building on a survey of 19 businesses (20 responses provided) and a review of available literature, the paper presents the current state of business engagement in EWS. Business activity has increased in the field, particularly in the use of EWS data to provide novel goods or services for weather-related optimization across industries. This rise is driven by greater awareness of weather and climate risks, increasing data availability and affordable computing, and heightened public focus on disaster resilience since the COVID-19 pandemic. These drivers are all expected to persist or intensify in the coming years. Barriers to participating in EWS persist, ranging from technical to economic challenges. For example, some markets for non-traditional climate services are immature and present high entry costs with unclear returns. Some barriers are governmental, manifesting as challenges in accessing the necessary data or finding mutually beneficial arrangements with NMHS agencies. To drive more business engagement in EWS, governments can focus on providing clarity and incentives and work to make meteorological data as accessible as possible. Businesses should be alert to the possibilities in a growing market and explore how their capabilities can create value as more industries and governments look to build stronger disaster resilience capabilities.The world needs more early warning coverage, and businesses can help. Catalysing Business Engagement in Early Warning Systems 6

Catalysing Business Engagement in Early Warning Systems 2025