Improvement in risks associated with politics, water stress and fire have moved Australia up two notches on the annual FM Global Resilience Index. 

Australia was ranked 13 this year while Denmark topped the list, which uses 18 factors to determine its ranking of 130 countries and territories by the resilience of their business environments.   

Luxembourg and Singapore took out silver and bronze.  

FM Global says countries ranked in the top 50 recover 30% faster from property losses, on average, than locations in other countries. This year the rankings include education, inflation, internet usage, water stress, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.   

“With these new factors, the 2024 FM Global Resilience Index offers organisations important new insights as they make strategic decisions that could affect their operations and performance,” VP Data Visualisation and Reporting Chris Majka said. 

Australia was a place behind US Zone 1, and a place ahead of Austria.  

Australia’s water stress resilience ranking jumped seven places to 24. That ranking measures freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of available freshwater resources. 

FM Global says Australia has taken major steps to conserve water, and more than a quarter of Australian homes collect and store rainwater for domestic use. Australia has also adopted water markets and invested in technology, including hydro panels which convert airborne moisture into drinking water. 

The 18 equally weighted resilience factors include Macro Physical, Control of Corruption, Climate Change Exposure, Education, Climate Risk Exposure, Energy, Climate Risk Quality, GHG Emissions, Cybersecurity, Health Expenditure, Fire Risk Quality, Inflation, Seismic Risk Exposure, Internet Usage, Logistics, Political Risk, Productivity, Urbanisation Rate and Water Stress.