The Resilience Advantage: A Small Business Guide to Preparing for Floods, Heatwaves, Wildfire, and Other Climate Disasters A practical, field-tested playbook for small business owners who want to survive—and thrive—when climate disasters strike. Climate disruptions aren’t a distant risk anymore; they’re a business reality. In The Resilience Advantage, resilience experts Joyce Coffee and Robert Macnee translate decades of community and corporate experience into clear, actionable steps that any small business can use to protect people, property, and profit through climate risk management. Quick-read checklists: Immediate, practical actions you can implement today. - Affordable upgrades: Low-cost fixes and planning moves that materially reduce downtime and damage. - Decision frameworks: How to prioritize investments that grow your resilience and preserve your bottom line - Case studies & templates: Real business examples, ready-to-use templates, and step-by-step planning tools. Whether you run a storefront, a restaurant, a home-based business, or a small regional company, this guide shows you how to anticipate hazards, maintain operations when disaster hits, and come back faster than your competitors. The Resilience Advantage also speaks to a broader audience: economic development officials, city leaders, chambers of commerce, and philanthropic funders —all of whom play critical roles in strengthening the economic fabric of their communities through disaster preparedness, disaster relief and small business management. Build the resilience that keeps your doors open, your staff safe, and your customers coming back. Advance Praise: ~Katharine Burgess, VP, Programs and Operations, Smart Growth America ~Chris Castro, Founding Director, EVP & Chief Sustainability Officer, Climate First Bank ~Alex Kruzel, Corporate Strategy Advisor & Author, "The Courage to Continue: Stay the Course on Sustainability to Secure our Future" ~Doug Parsons, Director, America Adapts Media ~Larry Susskind, PhD, Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning, MIT, Co-founder and Vice Chair, Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School ~Eric Tate, PhD, Professor, Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs ~Kevin Telford, SCORE mentor, retired CFO, retired Partner ~Arif Ullah, Executive Director, Anthropocene Alliance (A2) ~Katie Wholey, Director, Climate Resilience, Enterprise Community Partners ~Don Wuebbles, PhD, Coordinating Lead Author, U.S. National Climate Assessment and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Fellow, AAAS, AGU, and AMS Also available in Spanish: https://www.amazon.com/Ventaja-Resiliencia-Prepararse-Inundaciones-Forestales-ebook/dp/B0DVC7ZDZZ?ref_=ast_author_dp_rw&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.AyFNxC4Ysizskt3e9Z8It8l-grh64HCMxxKyprNnSFnGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.h8ZM_C4_LC4Ti-xwwT73WQ2JZmiS5oXERya-aaHdxGg&dib_tag=AUTHOR Why I Wrote This Book—and Why Now When 2025 began,we asked ourselves, "Where can we be of the greatest service right now? Where can our decades of climate resilience implementation experience truly make a difference?" The answer was clear: small businesses. Over the past 20+ years, Climate Resilience Consulting has supported governments, corporations, nonprofits, philanthropies, and financial institutions across the U.S. and around the world—from Vietnam to the Virgin Islands, Miami to Minneapolis. We've written national resilience playbooks, helped shape bond strategies for coastal restoration, created investment screens for climate-smart agriculture, and guided local resilience hubs, stormwater systems, and community housing plans. You can see the scope of our work here. And in all that work, one truth stood out: small businesses are the backbone of local economies—and often the most exposed to climate disruption. The Why Behind the Book This handbook— available for pre-order on Amazon here and in paperback starting 1 September 2025 — and co-authored with my colleague Robert Macnee, Ph.D. is the product of those decades of experience. It is designed to help the real engine of Main Street America navigate the rising risks of heat, flood, wildfire, wind, drought, sea-level rise, and more. I wrote this book because I've seen firsthand how the impacts of climate change—from power outages to washed-out access roads—can shutter a beloved family-run restaurant, a welding shop, or a daycare. I've also seen how the right steps, taken early, can mean the difference between devastation and durability. I wrote this book because too few small business owners have access to clear, concise, practical guidance that speaks their language—and because the stakes are simply too high for that gap to continue. And I wrote it because I know what it feels like to see the climate field ignore adaptation. In 2015, as I read the Paris Agreement and the World Economic Forum's Global Risk Report, I was struck by how little attention was being paid to adaptation in practice. So I launched Climate Resilience Co