Water and energy sector lead on resilience in uncertain times
17 May 2022
A new index of UK industrial sectors’ resilience to economic disruption has cited the water industry as the most effective at resisting challenges.
Professional services company GHD’s UK Disruption Index, published for the first time this year evaluates which UK industries have established resilience, and which are most susceptible to future shock and disruption.
GHD analysed the risk to 11 key sectors including four process industry areas –water, energy, chemical/pharmaceuticals and manufacturing. This combined independent research, internal GHD consultation data, and a survey of 2002 UK consumers and hundreds of business decision makers.
With scores ranging from 1 for the most resilient to 11 for the least, the water sector was the only one to achieve the top score.
Energy also scored highly with a score of 3, while manufacturing managed just above the half way mark on 5 points.
Of the process sector industries, chemical and pharmaceutical performed least well, with a score of 7. However this was substantially higher than several other industries, notably construction and retail on 10 and 11 respectively.
Commenting on the findings, Jonathan Edwards, EMEA Market Development Leader at GHD, said: “The results have highlighted several points that are imperative to ensuring future resilience across all sectors as we see crisis and disruption management becoming a key part of sustainable business.
“Our research has confirmed that the changing behaviours and expectations of consumers presents the biggest risk to resilience across industries. If businesses don’t start designing for the user first and foremost, they will get left behind at best and fail at worst.”
GHD’s Disruption Index can be seen in full here.
