is my business premises at risk of flooding or drought due to climate change

Physical climate risk is a question about locations, not about policy

This question appears in virtually every extended sustainability list and asks something different from a reduction target or a CO2 figure: it asks whether your locations are exposed to flooding, drought, heat or other physical climate effects. VSME limits the basic module to a limited set of environmental indicators; physical climate risk at location level falls in practice under the extended module, so expect this question especially from customers who go beyond basic reporting — banks and insurers often ask this specifically per property, because it affects their own risk on collateral or coverage.

Without a climate risk analysis of your locations (for example via a flood map or a drought map from an official source), there is essentially nothing to fill in: you cannot confirm that a location has "low risk", because that is a claim that requires a source. The honest answer is then that the analysis has not yet been performed, or that you refer to the locations that have already been tested. This subject touches on the question of whether there are locations in or next to a protected nature area: both questions are location-bound and ask for a map or testing per address, not for a statement about the company as a whole.

Where this comes from: the scope of VSME and the classification of GHG Protocol

VSME explicitly distinguishes a basic module (mandatory minimum indicators) and an extended module in which location-specific and physical risks are addressed; physical climate risk belongs to that second tier. The GHG Protocol itself concerns the classification into scope 1, 2 and 3 of emissions and does not directly address this subject, but whoever receives this question often receives in the same list also the question about the direct emissions of greenhouse gases — it is then useful to answer both with the same source file, so that the answers remain mutually consistent with each other.