Welcome to another week of Shaken Not Burned! 

We spend a lot of time talking about risk as if it lives in spreadsheets and can be easily interpreted through scenarios, disclosures and forecasts. What if the bigger risk right now is assuming that uncertainty will eventually resolve into something stable?

At this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, the language of cooperation and resilience was everywhere. But the mood underneath told a different story with political and international norms fragmenting, power concentrating in new ways and trade rules and international regulation becoming more contested and uneven.

In this week’s episode, Felicia talks to Sherry Madera, CEO of disclosure system provider CDP, to talk about what she saw at Davos, and what CDP’s latest Corporate Health Check reveals about what companies are actually doing beneath all the noise.

The shift is striking. While before CDP may have indicated corporate ambition, it’s now about measuring preparedness. And only a small share of companies are genuinely ready for physical risk, transition risk, water stress and nature loss.

How do you spot tangible action? You’ll see it in companies funding transition plans, linking executive pay to delivery, working with suppliers, and treating climate, water and nature as operational constraints, rather than reputational issues.

What came out of Davos is that sustainability is now about economics. Companies act on climate and nature data for three reasons:

• Access to capital

• Business efficiency and top-line protection

• Compliance readiness

Those data points now determine whether companies are: 1) included or excluded from major investment funds; 2) qualify for lower-cost financing; and 3) remain eligible suppliers in global value chains worth trillions.

As always, we’d love to hear what resonates and what, if any, concerns this conversation raises for you, especially if you’re thinking about risk, resilience, or long-term value inside your own organisation.

Reading materials:

• CDP Corporate Health Check 2026

• Transforming markets: the growth of Earth Economics

• The Disclosure Dividend 2025

• IoFA: Parasol Lost

• UNU: Global Water Bankruptcy

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