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Severe to catastrophic disasters pose the potential to overwhelm traditional emergency management approaches, necessitating the adoption of a whole-of-community approach.

A key component of the whole-of-community approach is building collaborative partnerships between communities, government agencies, community organisations and businesses across the phases of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery to engage their full capacity.

To date, there has been little research examining the role of the business sector in disaster management although many businesses, large and small, provide assistance. This research focuses specifically on the role and involvement of businesses in disaster management.

Pertinent findings of the research were:

• Resilience:  Large businesses acknowledge their role in ensuring their resilience and the safety of their staff, whilst smaller businesses see less of a role. Large businesses expect other businesses to be investing in their business resilience. Businesses are motivated to invest in disaster resilience to keep employees, customers and neighbours safe and to reduce the risk of business disruption.
• Preparedness: Most businesses do not perceive that they have a role in community disaster preparedness and believe they lack the capabilities to do so. Some are unsure as to what role they would play if they were to become involved. Despite this, there are a small number of businesses that would like to do more to enhance wider community resilience. For example, insurers are making efforts to incentivize property level prevention and preparedness.
• Businesses believe that community organisations and government have key roles in building wider community preparedness as well as ensuring their own resilience. Community organisations were seen to provide immense value given their strong links to communities. Government, was viewed as needing to take a lead coordinating role, including investing in disaster mitigation, building resilience through urban planning and infrastructure design and ensuring emergency services were resourced.
• Response: Most big businesses but only some small businesses believe that they have a role in disaster response. Roles are described as protecting the safety of staff and customers, ensuring the resilience of their operations and supporting any staff that volunteer with emergency services. Businesses are motivated to take this role by the need to ensure employee and customer safety and the resilience of operations.
• Only a few businesses see that they have a role in supporting emergency services during disasters. Those that saw they had a role in supporting emergency services, had access to plant and equipment, and some were trained in emergency management. Similarly, businesses thought that community organisations would have little role in disaster response and that, rather, government emergency services needed to take the lead as they were appropriately trained and equipped.
• Recovery: Large businesses believed they had a strong role in disaster recovery from both an internal and wider community perspective:
  • They saw they must lead the restoration of their business operations and infrastructure whilst maintaining the safety of their staff and customers. Restoration of business operations was seen to be critical to ensure that vital supply chains recommenced, that people could return to their employment and local economies could commence recovery.
  • Businesses saw their role in provision of support to communities as fulfilling obligations to customers;  making cash donations,  fund raising and managing public appeals; allowing staff to volunteer to support recovery efforts through corporate volunteering projects with community organisations; assisting to coordinate spontaneous volunteering; making product and service donations; providing specialist equipment and expertise; collaborating to ensure provision of necessities; providing flexibility to customers to be responsive to their needs; providing facilities for evacuation, recovery centres and accommodation; taking leadership and coordination roles in recovery; assisting to provide recovery information to community members; providing priority in their service provision to emergency management organisations and assisting in reconstruction activities.
• Large and small businesses are motivated to participate in disaster recovery to ensure the safety of their staff and customers,  maintain market share, serve the community as a core part of their brand and values, ensure the prosperity of economies that businesses rely on, build their brand and utilise a socially responsible brand to their advantage and build staff motivation and satisfaction.
• The provision of support to communities was viewed as discretionary and dependent on the capability and type of business. There was a view that businesses would not attempt to profit from disasters and that their business models needed to be flexible to adapt to the needs of the community to ensure no further harm occurred. Whilst businesses need to deliver profits to shareholders it is not the sole objective driving business: rather, the purpose of a business was regarded as more complex in serving multiple objectives. Social responsibility was seen to be a demand of customers, employees and external stakeholders. The ability to provide support to communities and act in a socially responsible manner is dependent upon a company’s ability to afford to do so by making profits: that is, a balance must be achieved between profit-making and investing in communities.
• Peak and membership bodies offer capabilities to provide information, expertise, knowledge, networks and guidance to their members, as well as providing industry-wide coordination to support communities.
• Businesses view the role of government in recovery as leadership and coordination. Community organisations were seen to provide a wide diversity of skills and capabilities to fulfil roles relating to the provision of on the ground relief services to communities including providing emotional, mental health and wellbeing support; emergency catering; logistics; material aid; local knowledge and connections; and looking after vulnerable people.
• Collaboration: this is occurring between businesses and government and with community organisations, though not always. Where collaboration had occurred with government, there was said to be a high degree of trust. In many cases collaboration was in a pro-bono capacity whilst, for a few, collaboration was directed by commercial terms. In some instances, businesses had a pre-existing supplier relationship with government. Only some businesses have been involved in government-led disaster planning or exercising. Those that had often had collaborations with emergency management committees or information sharing forums or had direct connections to local emergency services.
• A small number of businesses had been involved in the Australian Government’s Trusted Information Sharing Networks which are the primary means of the Commonwealth Government to engage businesses in information sharing and critical infrastructure resilience. Forums were seen as worthwhile as they facilitated collaboration between businesses, which was often extended to working together during disasters to ensure continuity of critical service delivery. They also provided opportunities to raise issues with government. The networks, though, were viewed as siloed and required the ability to share and collaborate more between different sectors.
• Large businesses collaborate with community organisations mainly to support on-the-ground community recovery rather than providing services directly themselves, recognising that community organisations have more capability to do this. There was said to be a strong degree of trust in these organisations. Most often, businesses collaborated with community organisations that they had pre-existing relationships with. These organisations tended to be large charities with a nationwide presence. Often, businesses volunteered with organisations, provided donations, or conducted fundraising on their behalf.
• Businesses typically have collaborative arrangements in place to support their day-to-day business activities and there is evidence of collaboration extending into disaster management. Most businesses rely on pre-established relationships to guide collaboration. Collaboration can be based on goodwill or governed by commercial terms. Some have established Memorandums of Understanding to provide mutual aid. Competition regulations can be a barrier to collaboration during times of disaster.
• There  are  many  strengths  of  involving  large  businesses  in  disaster management that include:
  • prior experience in disaster response and recovery
  • vast logistical capabilities and knowledge of supply chains
  • relevant resources  such  as  plant  and  equipment  and  trained personnel
  • extensive and trusted national networks
  • collaborative approaches
  • diversity of capability and specialist expertise
  •  flexibility, scalability and adaptation
  • local presence and connections.
• Barriers to further involvement in disaster management included:
  • Barriers to large businesses:
    • lack of understanding of community needs and of how best to be involved
    • lack of existing relationships or disruption to relationships
    • lack of  alignment  between  businesses  and  government typified by a government centric approach
    • commercial resources are finite and there are commercial realities
    • different     emergency     management     and     operating arrangements in different jurisdictions
    • concurrent major disasters can strain resources
    • lack of information sharing between businesses.
  • Barriers to small businesses:
    • lack of capability
    • not within the charter of their organization
    • lack of relationships with government organisations
    • lack of knowledge as to how to engage.
• Some large businesses have an appetite to be more involved in disaster management, particularly to support communities. Appetite for involvement was context-dependent, driven by the expectations of customers and employees, but dependent on businesses having a suitable role and alignment with company values. Few small businesses have any appetite for further involvement in disaster management.
• Some large businesses see a risk to their business's brand and reputation if they are not involved in disaster management. There are some risks when businesses get involved, including not meeting community expectations; not adequately understanding the needs of impacted communities; partnering with organisations that were not credible and insuring donations were effective; work, health and safety (WHS) of staff operating in disaster areas; undermining of local businesses and reducing the speed of local economic recovery and lack of insurance cover.
• Suggestions  by  businesses  to  improve  their  involvement  in  disaster management included: invite businesses to collaborate; proactively enhance relationships and networks between businesses, government and community organisations; create a national model for engagement between government and businesses including industry coordination points in each jurisdiction; raise awareness of what capabilities are available; provide businesses awareness of what problems need to be solved; provide greater awareness of government disaster plans and expectations upon businesses and establish panel arrangements to procure specialist expertise.