News & insights Blog & insights Extreme heat is a systems stress test and building resilience requires collective action Ksenia Benifand, Associate Director, Americas at Forum for the Future, explores how extreme heat is becoming a major systems challenge affecting health, infrastructure, energy, and business resilience. In this article, she highlights why building heat resilience will require coordinated, cross-sector action to protect people and communities in a warming world. Extreme heat is not just a climate risk. It is a systems stress test. It tests the systems people, businesses, and communities depend on every day — from supply chains, products and services, to infrastructure, healthcare, housing, and energy. That impacts of heat become visible in concrete, high-stakes conditions: workers’ access to rest, water, shade, and safe working conditions; homes, workplaces, and facilities that can stay cool; electricity that remains reliable and affordable when people need cooling most; and the ability of businesses, health systems, and communities to function safely as pressure on infrastructure, services, and care grows. This is why extreme heat must be understood as a systems issue: one that affects health, business resilience, and the wider conditions people, communities, and economies rely on. These conditions are not distributed equally. Long-standing patterns of disinvestment and unequal access to infrastructure have left some communities more exposed to heat and less resourced to respond. The signs are no longer subtle. The data is clear: extreme heat is becoming more frequent, intense, and disruptive across the U.S. In March 2026, the continental U.S. experienced its hottest March in 132 years of records, and 1,432 counties — covering more than half of the lower 48 states and home to roughly one-third of the U.S. population — recorded their warmest day on record that month. Extreme heat is not a distant future risk; it is already reshaping daily life, health, and economic resilience. Heat increases the risk of heat stroke, respiratory illness, cardiovascular stress, poor birth outcomes, and worsening chronic disease. It also disrupts daily life and economic security — causing missed school and workdays, increasing caregiving burdens, and forcing households to choose between air conditioning, food, medicine, and other essentials. A recent panel I moderated at the 2026 Our Planet, Our Health Convention, Health in the Hot Zone: Science, Policy, and Partnerships to Reduce Extreme Heat Harms, brought one dimension of this into sharper focus: energy insecurity and power shutoffs can turn extreme heat from a health risk into a life-threatening emergency. Energy insecurity is not only about affordability. It is about whether people can maintain safe indoor temperatures during extreme weather — and whether they remain connected to electricity when cooling becomes essential. As heat seasons lengthen, access to reliable, affordable power is becoming a direct determinant of health. For businesses, extreme heat is just one example of why resilience can no longer be understood only through operations or facilities. Business health is inseparable from the health of workers, customers, supply chains, communities, and the wider systems on which they depend. Tools such as the Climate Health Cost Forecaster, developed by Mercer and guided by the National Commission on Climate and Workforce Health, are helping companies assess how heat and other extreme weather events may affect workforce health and resilience over time. To fully understand heat risk, businesses need to take a wider view and ask: Are workers protected from dangerous heat exposure? Are facilities prepared for higher cooling demand and potential outages? Are supply chain partners facing disruption or unsafe working conditions? Are products and services helping people stay safe? Are surrounding communities equipped with cooling infrastructure, resilient housing, and reliable energy? These questions are quickly becoming central to business continuity, risk management, and responsible leadership. Forum for the Future’s white paper, Heat Resilience: An Opportunity for Cross-Sector Action in the United States, argues that extreme heat is a shared challenge requiring coordinated action across business, healthcare, government, philanthropy, and communities. The paper offers a systems view of heat resilience and a practical roadmap for moving from awareness to action. A systems approach to heat resilience means coordinated action to: No single organization can build heat resilience alone. But every organization has a role to play — in both protecting people from the heat already here and reducing the emissions that are making heat more dangerous. Extreme heat is testing the systems we all depend on. The question now is whether we will keep reactively responding after harm occurs — or proactively work together to redesign the conditions that allow people, communities, and economies to stay safe as temperatures rise, while accelerating the transition to a cooler, lower-carbon future. 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