Richard Clissold-Vasey
Strategic Adviser on Climate-Integrated Business Performance.
Today's plan may already contain commitments the business will struggle to meet.
This isn't a future problem. Targets, investment decisions and operating plans may already depend on conditions that no longer hold.
Climate, energy and resource pressures are changing costs, supply reliability, asset performance and demand. They reach the P&L through decisions being made now: budgets, investment cases, supplier contracts, customer promises and operating plans.
I advise strategy directors and senior leaders in UK-based FMCG, consumer goods, retail and asset-intensive businesses before more cost, risk or missed value is locked in. I lead a focused review to identify the live commitments most exposed, make the financial and operating consequence visible, and agree what should change now. I also help strengthen planning and governance so the same exposure is not built into the next plan.
The Business Impact Chain shows how an external pressure reaches a live commitment, making the performance implications visible before more cost, risk or missed value is locked in.
Whether you have a plan, investment case or contract in front of you, or want to explore how this applies to your business, a first conversation carries no commitment.
Where does the urgency come from?
Not from adding every climate issue to every decision. It comes when someone has to put their name to a number, a contract or a choice that rests on conditions that may no longer hold.
Plan or budget submission
Do the growth, margin, cost and return commitments being signed still reflect the conditions the business expects to operate in?
Capital committee or stage gate
Do the assumptions hold across the life of the asset, and does the case reflect the full economics?
Major sourcing decision or supplier review
Are cost, energy, water, yield, availability and reliability visible before the contract is locked in?
Customer contract, launch or service promise
Can the supply base, assets and operating model support the price, volume and service level being promised?
Strategy or five-year plan refresh
Does the plan the Board will be asked to support reflect the operating environment the business is entering?
Insurance, refinancing or estate decision
Is repricing feeding back into asset economics, capital choices and the wider plan?
These pressures are already reaching the numbers. In the Bank of England’s September 2026 Decision Maker Panel, 70% of UK firms expected the recent energy shock to reduce profit margins over the following 12 months, while 57% expected to increase prices. BSI’s 2026 survey of 7,068 G7 business leaders found that 77% believed climate change could disrupt their supply chains, yet only one in five had undertaken climate-risk adaptation planning. The question is whether these changing conditions are reaching the assumptions and decisions in the business plan early enough to change it.
The exposure can be created before it reaches the P&L
Often, the relevant information already exists in Sustainability, Risk, Procurement or Operations. The weakness is that it has not reached the plan, investment case, sourcing decision or governance forum early enough to change the commitment.
An assumption then becomes a financial and operating exposure: a supplier contract based on unstable conditions, an investment case built on incomplete economics, or a customer promise that becomes harder to keep. Capital may already be committed, costs embedded and choices narrowed by the time the impact is visible in revenue, margin, returns or service.
Exposure
A changing condition reaches a live commitment and the operating decisions flowing from it.
Mispricing
A budget, investment, contract or portfolio choice looks attractive because part of the economics is missing.
Missed advantage
Changed conditions create an opportunity to protect value, deploy capital or strengthen the customer offer before competitors act.
How I help leadership teams respond
I lead and facilitate the work, bringing structured frameworks, relevant evidence and senior judgement.
1. Diagnose
Together, we trace how climate, energy and resource pressures reach operations, business economics and live commitments or opportunities, connecting evidence held across the business.
2. Prioritise
We test which exposures are real, evidenced and material. Each is classified as act, investigate, monitor or close.
3. Design
We identify the capability gap behind each priority and agree practical changes to the decision, planning process or governance.
4. Mobilise
We turn the agreed response into owners, dates and an outline 90-day plan, with a route into planning, investment or governance.
Trace the exposure → determine what matter → design the response → mobilise delivery.
Senior judgement, grounded in delivery
I have spent more than three decades helping businesses turn strategy into delivery. That experience helps me see connections across external pressure, economics, planning, investment, governance and operations, and distinguish a plausible recommendation from a change that can hold under normal commercial pressure.
The value is not another heatmap. It is the ability to connect evidence held in different parts of the business, translate it into commercial meaning, structure a useful decision and help senior people reach a credible answer together.
"Richard is highly skilled at working with senior stakeholders across the organisation to define strategy and deliver complex, multi-stream programmes to generate better commercial outcomes."
Eve Dixon, Global Transformation Director, Kantar
Where to start and where it leads
Business Plan Weakness Test → Business Plan Weakness Diagnostic → Integrated Value Planning → Climate-Integrated Enterprise
Business Plan Weakness Test
Five questions that help a leader recognise whether changing conditions are reaching the decisions that shape performance.
Business Plan Weakness Diagnostic
A focused engagement around a live commitment or opportunity. I work with your team to connect the evidence, help leaders decide what to do next, and advise on changes to planning and governance.
Integrated Value Planning
Integrated Value Planning is the planning discipline that brings climate, energy and resource pressures into business planning, capital allocation and governance.
Climate-Integrated Enterprise
A Climate-Integrated Enterprise is a business that integrates climate, energy and resource pressures into its core decisions about growth, investment, operations, risk and performance.
Which commitment may be harder to meet than the plan suggests?
Before a plan goes to the board or an investment case is approved, you need confidence that its commitments still make sense and that material opportunities are visible. Climate and resource pressures affect your competitors too. Businesses that build them into plans and operating-model decisions earlier can protect critical assets, deploy capital more effectively and pursue growth on more resilient foundations.