Climate change relates to my career in a few different ways. My current major at City Tech is Hospitality Management, in hopes of opening my own cooking studio one day. Climate change affects my career in the food and beverage/culinary sector of hospitality.
The umbrella of hospitality is changing as a whole due to climate change and not in a positive way. According to the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, “Extreme weather is increasing the cost of operations and reducing the number of tourists visiting certain destinations, while local and national environmental policies and penalties are being introduced in cities and countries around the world. The hotel sector alone attributes to about 1% of carbon global emissions.”
According to BSR.org, the food and beverage sector is exploring ways to approach adapting to climate change in the areas that are being affected, such as supply chain, water scarcity, infrastructure and distribution, evolving consumer demands, and workforce stability. Starting with the supply chain, with changes in growing seasons, reduced rainfall and an uptick in pests affects availability and increases costs of key inputs such as sugarcane, corn, beets, citrus, coffee, tea, produce and grains. Companies like Coco-Cola, Brown Forman, Tesco, and Unilever would be affected by climate change
Water scarcity is a concern because the increased risk of competition for water in local communities can cause problems such as increased cost for water, reputation, and social license to operate a particular issue for bottlers like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. The decline of water availability for growers and food manufacturers that are being affected in water stressed areas are Cadbury, Campbell’s soup, and CongAgra. It’s all about the evolving consumer demand and work force stability and the unpredictable and potential increase in temperature.
