A range of Leeds businesses unite to better protect the city from future flooding by joining the Aire Resilience Company.
March 2, 2026Headline News: Work Begins Upstream
Having begun trading earlier in the year, ARC has now started delivering on the ground – commencing our flood resilience work in the upper catchment of the River Aire.
Over the last few months, our team have been hard at work conducting soil assessments upstream, and we have now begun delivery with 25 hectares of soil aeration (about 35 football pitches’ worth).
Once the dry weather has passed, we are poised to expand this work in collaboration with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Aire Rivers Trust, and our partners on the land.
Spotlight On: Climate Careers with Ruth Gorse Academy
Over the past twelve months we’ve worked with teachers at the Ruth Gorse Academy, integrating practical climate-career skills into the Year Nine curriculum. Our focus has been on speaking and listening through an environmental lens – adding bespoke oracy skills training to a course of lessons on ‘Fragile Earth’.
Earlier this month we invited RGA students to the Carriageworks, to spend an afternoon practising these skills with some brilliant colleagues in climate-facing roles. They did brilliantly, talking climate and careers with colleagues from ARC, the Environment Agency, EcoSikh, Leeds City Council, the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission, the NHS, and the University of Leeds.
ARC in Action: Talking Resilience
Everybody is talking about resilience this summer, which means the ARC team has been hard at work, appearing on pages, stages and screens across the UK. You might have read about ARC alongside our friends at Azets and Leeds Bradford Airport in two articles in the Yorkshire Evening Post, or featured as a case study in this series from the Green Finance Institute. Or maybe you saw ARC Director Jonathan Moxon in conversation at Flood & Coast – or at UKREiiF, being hosted by our friends at JBA.
Alternatively, if you were at Reset Connect in June, you might have seen ARC Strategic Advisor Keith Davie discussing flood resilience on the main stage – and if you did, you might have caught ARC Chair Georgina Mitchell there the day before, hosting a discussion about nature-based solutions. If you missed the team this summer, though, you can still hear Jonathan on the Planet Possible podcast, discussing ARC with the inimitable Niki Roach.
Proud of what your business is doing on climate resilience? Why not apply for a Climate Resilience Award? These prizes reward organisations that are demonstrating what works on resilience, recognising it as a strategic priority for businesses worldwide. Application deadline is 30th September.
Curious about the financial rewards of climate adaptation? Take a look at this explainer from the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change. Elsewhere on their website you can also find guides to Net Zero investments, lasting engagement, and appraising physical climate risks.
