Over 20 years ago, our founders envisioned how technology could be used to create a redundant, scalable, and resilient solution to quickly and reliably alert entire populations in the face of critical events. In that time, Everbridge has built a category-leading, unified critical event management platform trusted by more than 6,500 global organizations. According to a recent Forrester Consulting commissioned study, after investing in Everbridge’s CEM platform, interviewees’ organizations had “the capabilities and resources to effectively respond to and contain critical events, allowing them to better protect employees, company assets, and business processes.”

Since our beginnings, the Everbridge brand has stood for protecting our customers’ most valuable assets, their people. We are pleased to unveil our evolved Everbridge brand, renewing our mission to keep people safe and organizations running.

Our revised logo is an elegant and simple reflection of the resilience we provide to our customers, their rapid response to critical events, and most importantly the speed and upward strength of the recovery process. Our evolved brand is also a reflection of our desire to continue to serve you, our customer, with a modern comprehensive critical event management platform.

We are grateful for your continued support and loyalty as we embark on this exciting new chapter for our company.

David Wagner,

President & Chief Executive Officer, Everbridge

With the growing concern over climate change, organizations are starting to take notice of the risks that come with it. Unfortunately, many organizations are still not fully aware of the consequences of ignoring these risks, which can lead to significant business disruption and financial losses. According to research conducted by Verdantix, “more than half of organizations have less than $1 million to respond to catastrophic events, and 41% of participants stated that they had no budget at all for catastrophic events” (Navigating Climate Threats and Proactive Mechanisms to Achieve Business Climate Resilience, November 2022). With climate change disasters on the rise, it is nearly inevitable that organizations will face a crisis at some point in the near future, and the time to begin preparing is now. 

The current systems and solutions in place for managing climate hazards are often inadequate, and the reliance on traditional insurance has become insufficient. But there’s more to it than just the financial impact—organizations must take the necessary steps to become more resilient to the risks of climate change, keep their people safe, and position themselves to succeed in a dynamic market. 

What is Climate Resilience? 

Climate resilience refers to an organization’s ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to the impacts of climate change while maintaining essential functions and keeping people and assets safe. It requires strategies, actions, and technology that enable organizations to manage and reduce climate-related risks and seize opportunities to build a more sustainable and resilient future. 

The Insufficiency of Traditional Insurance 

Organizations often rely on insurance providers to provide protection against the impacts of extreme weather events. However, traditional insurance models are becoming less reliable due to the unpredictability of such events. There are often significant delays in the dispersal of funds from insurance companies, or sometimes they do not cover the claim at all. The report found that “over two-thirds of organizations had a loss caused by an extreme weather event in the two last years, with most submitting an insurance claim for these events” (Navigating Climate Threats and Proactive Mechanisms to Achieve Business Climate Resilience, November 2022). These delays or denials of funds can leave organizations unable to react and adapt quickly, leading to business disruption and financial losses. 

Increasing External Pressure 

Soon, if they haven’t already, organizations will face significant external pressure in the form of new sustainability regulations. In fact, “74% of participants in the [Verdantix] study highlighted regulatory pressure as a key factor influencing climate risk management budgets” (Navigating Climate Threats and Proactive Mechanisms to Achieve Business Climate Resilience, November 2022). This will require organizations to evaluate their exposure to climate hazards, which means that organizations must take the necessary steps to develop adaptive strategies for risk reduction when dealing with climate hazards due to global warming, ultimately increasing their resilience. Failing to do so will result in further costs and consequences down the line.

Invest in the Future, Not Just the Present

Many organizations focus on short-term costs, ignoring the long-term benefits of investing in resilience. It is concerning that “most firms are not planning to invest in critical climate change risk management solutions” (Navigating Climate Threats and Proactive Mechanisms to Achieve Business Climate Resilience, November 2022). This lack of preparedness can lead to significant costs later on. By investing in an adaptive resilience solution now, organizations can save potentially millions down the line. 

An Adaptive Resilience Solution: How to Improve Climate Resilience 

To build resilience in the face of climate change, organizations need to take a proactive approach. Some tangible steps they can take are: 

1. Implementing adaptation measures, such as reviewing and updating business continuity plans and identifying potential supply chain disruptions. 
2. Exploring alternative finance options, such as parametric insurance. 
3. Reviewing and updating risk management processes to ensure they are inclusive of climate change risks. 
4. Investing in new technologies and solutions that can help better predict and respond to extreme weather events. 

Everbridge’s travel risk management solutions help keep travelers safe and organizations extend their duty of care. With Travel Protector, organizations can identify relevant threats, warn those affected and prescribe action. At any time, a comprehensive travel assistance service team, Everbridge Assist, is a call away, ready to help with any event that could impact the health, safety or wellbeing of a corporate traveler.

Everbridge PSInsights provides public authorities with the information needed to quickly assess the public safety impact of situations in real-time, enabling them to make more informed decisions and thereby reducing the impact of incidents.

Vincent Geffray, Product Marketing

Over the past few years, there has been an increase in the frequency of natural disasters and epidemics. According to the EM-DAT Emergency Event Database, there were 432 natural hazard-related incidents in 2021, compared to an average of 357 annual catastrophes for the period 2001-2020. Furthermore, global disasters killed 10,492 people, impacted millions of others, and caused $252.1 billion in damages (https://reliefweb.int/report/world/2021-disasters-numbers).  Asia suffered 40% of all disaster incidents and accounted for 49% of all deaths and 66% of all people affected.

It is difficult for public authorities to deal with unpredictable and often unpreventable disasters, such as tornados, flash floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, landslides, wildfires, or volcanic eruptions. and many countries have struggled to keep up with these changes. While there are many ways to alert people about imminent dangers, many public safety systems:

• cannot reach everyone, everywhere, and every time
• have limited capabilities and don’t offer multi-channel alerting
• are too old and not equipped to use the latest technologies like 5G or satellite communications.

Public warning technologies have been widely discussed, tested, and evaluated. Pros and cons have been documented to help public authorities make the best decision in selecting nationwide population alerting systems (more information on EENA’s document on Public Warning Systems). In some regions of the world, directives and laws have also kicked in to provide the necessary guidelines (such as the 8 recommendations to get the most out of Public Warning Systems – EENA) and implementation timeframes while complying with existing privacy laws and regulations. In the European Union, for example, every member state has had to deploy a nationwide telephone-based public warning system. Today, the fastest method of communicating about an unpredictable catastrophe is cell broadcast, as it can reach millions of people in seconds with clear instructions, without app downloads, registrations, or mobile operator provider distinctions. Cell broadcast allows all mobile devices in an affected area to be instantly alerted by drawing an area on a map. Messages are then received simultaneously on each device within that area using radio dissemination.

This technology is very efficient but also restricted because it does not provide the required level of detail to help emergency services respond more quickly and efficiently. It is like operating in a “black box” because there’s no easy way for public authorities to:

• know how many people are impacted – are they residents, tourists, visitors, or foreigners?
• know the nationality of the people in order to communicate in a language they understand
• monitor the evacuation progress and crowd movements

So, what is new?

Introducing Everbridge PSInsights^TM, the latest innovation from the Everbridge labs that turns the lights on an incident’s scene and provides real-time visibility so emergency services can create the most effective responses to keep people safe.

PSInsights offers the required level of detail to help emergency services communicate and respond rapidly and accurately.

Today Everbridge published a study conducted by independent research firm, Verdantix, “Navigating Climate Threats and Proactive Mechanisms to Achieve Business Climate Resilience”, and recently discussed these findings at the World Climate Summit / COP27.

The study shows that the measures and systems to manage risk caused by climate change are often under-funded. With the increase in climate-related severe weather events resulting in unprecedented levels of damage ($2.2B in the US alone), compounded by new and expanding ESG regulations, it is prudent that businesses increase focus on climate resilience now.

The study provides a four-step call to action to create a resilient enterprise through climate adaptation, which include the relevance of Critical Event Management solutions to better anticipate, mitigate, respond, and recover from climate threats, and the critical role of insurance and new alternative finance solutions. Click here to read the study. 

Everbridge is a trusted critical event management partner to the top research universities in the USA, providing solutions to keep campuses safe.