The recent floods revealed an uncomfortable truth that Malaysia is entering a new climate reality driven by environmental degradation, urbanisation and underinvestment in infrastructure.
Dr Dalilawati Zainal, a senior lecturer at the Department of Accounting, Faculty of Business and Economics, Universiti Malaya, in her column in The Malay Mail, noted that this reality carries direct implications for national competitiveness, organisational resilience and the country’s broader sustainability agenda.
“From a business and accounting perspective, short-duration floods impose long-tail economic costs. Vehicle repairs run into thousands of ringgit. Micro-enterprises lose a full day’s revenue. Supply chains face delays,” she noted.
She added that workers unable to commute reduce productivity, particularly in the Klang Valley. For government agencies, service continuity is disrupted, as seen in Perlis, where flood-affected routes temporarily halted operations for state authorities.
“These costs rarely make headlines, yet they accumulate significantly across households, companies and public-sector budgets,” she wrote, adding that floods are not simply environmental events, but are financial and operational risks that both public and private sectors must treat with greater seriousness.
“Environmental sustainability lies at the heart of this challenge. The November floods were intensified not only by persistent rainfall but also by decades of weakening natural flood buffers.
“Deforestation, hillslope development and clogged drainage have undermined the land’s ability to absorb excess water. When heavy rain meets fragile ecosystems and ageing infrastructure, floods develop quickly and with outsized consequences,” she said in the column.
