An initiative of His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, the Business Emergency Resilience Group (BERG) helps businesses and communities across the UK to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies such as flooding, cyber-attacks and civil unrest.
BERG is part of the Prince’s Responsible Business Network ‘Business in the Community’ (BITC), whose members work together to tackle a wide range of issues that are essential to building a fairer society and a more sustainable future.
The BDMA is an official Supporter of the BERG programme and, as a Strategic Partner, will be working to support the resilience of supply chains, customers and networks, and contributing to future planning and debate.
Helping businesses & communities prepare for, respond to and recover from a crisis
BERG helps small to medium-sized business owners recognise and plan for significant risks, and sign-posts support from larger organisations, helping them recover more quickly following an emergency. This assists SMEs to:
Prepare by raising awareness through tailored messages, practical information and events
Respond by signposting to advice and practical support
Recover by following-up requests for help
BERG was there to help during the UK Riots 2010, Cockermouth floods 2010, Hebden Bridge flooding 2012, Somerset floods 2013/14, Ballater Station fire 2015 and the 2015/2016 Winter storms.
Senior industry leadership across business
BERG is convened by senior business leaders including Adler & Allan, Aviva, Barclays, BT, HSBC, Marsh, Network Rail, RBS, Virgin Money, Munich Re/HSB Engineering Insurance, SecuriGroup and Novae.
Significant support is provided by UK and Scottish Government agencies, including the Cabinet Office (Civil Contingencies Secretariat), Met Office, Environment Agency and Safer Scotland. BERG also works with the British Red Cross, emergency services, local authorities, local resilience forums and regional resilience partnerships.
Reaching out to more businesses and communities
BERG’s network utilises BITC’s extensive business membership and offers access to resilience expertise in many areas of everyday business.
The support and collaboration of this growing network contributes a wide range of skills and is having a significant impact in building more robust and resilient businesses and communities.
Networking and events
In addition to the BITC Responsible Business Awards, presented annually at a Gala Dinner which attracts over 2,000 guests, the BERG programme includes regular events designed to offer small business stakeholders access to information, advice and expertise on specific topics.
A ‘Cyber Resilience Lunch ‘n’ Learn’ event, for example, focused on cyber risks and simple tools to tackle them. Since cyber security is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses across the UK today, for small to medium sized businesses, the potential business disruption can be fatal if not handled properly and quickly.
The BDMA was also delighted to support a seminar, hosted by BITC and London Resilience, ahead of 2016 Business Continuity Awareness week. Entitled ‘Risky Business’, the day brought together local authority business continuity representatives and business networks to consider the key messages which will help SMEs to become more resilient and assist them to avoid disruption by developing plans for dealing with a range of emergencies.
BERG events range from small networking sessions to conferences and courses. Some are aimed specifically at small business and others, such as ‘Sustainable Business Models’, held in June 2016, are open to businesses of any size or sector.