This content was originally published on The Resilience Shift website. The Resilience Shift, a 5-year programme supported by Lloyd’s Register Foundation and hosted by Arup, transitioned at the end of 2021 to become Resilience Rising. You can read more about The Resilience Shift’s journey and the transition to Resilience Rising here.
Our friends at Resilience First hosted a truly expert panel in collaboration with the London Climate Change Partnership on how insurance can change behaviours and build climate resilience.
The Climate Emergency: changing behaviours through insurance webinar featured Julia Elizabeth King, Baroness Brown of Cambridge, Chair of the Adaptation Committee, Committee on Climate Change; Jason Lowe, Head of Mitigation Advice, Met Office; and Philip Songhurst-Thonet, Senior Director, Control Risks. Chaired by Professor Chris Rapley CBE, Professor of Climate Science, University College London.
The insurance sector is having to recalibrate its risk models in the face of global climate change. Previous probabilities of climate-related disasters are no longer valid and impacts (losses) incurred in distant regions are affecting premiums at home. Yet insurance take-up for flooding and heat-related damage remains relatively low.
With better modelling and data than ever before now available to track and predict climate patterns and impact, Jason Lowe pointed out that increasing awareness by communicating clearly with the public does work.
The nature of the risks continue to change and so too should the language on climate change risk. A two degree rise in temperature, which will have significant impact across business supply chains, as well as on infrastructure and livelihoods, has now moved from a ‘risk’ to a likelihood businesses should be preparing for. The panellists advice was “do the no regrets actions now” .
With the number of >$1billion disasters rising exponentially, the insurance industry is now speaking more robustly on their approach to businesses who do not take steps to embed resilience into their operations. Insurance leaders are now driving climate change to the top of the agenda for businesses with insurance premiums dependent on businesses embedding climate resilience.
COVID shows what can be done to handle climate risk
Listening to the science and responding to it with action was clear said Baroness Brown. Similarly, dealing with long term risks like pandemics and climate and change before disaster, embedding behaviours so they cannot be stepped back from when a crisis recedes as happened in previous global system crises.
The intention is to produce a working paper that will generate a work stream on the role of insurance in climate adaptation / mitigation.
Upcoming Resilience First webinars this autumn
7 October – Agile resilience: lessons from Covid-19 for the ‘next normal’ with Elena Chong, Engagement Manager, McKinsey & Company; Hank Cole, Global Head of Business Continuity and Incident Management, HSBC; Brian Stratton, Head of Distribution Capital Delivery, UK Power Networks and Alan Brown, Group Security Director, Tesco. Chaired by: Chris Handscomb, Partner, McKinsey. (In partnership with McKinsey.)
21 October – Skills Resilience in a Changing World with Stephen Phipson CBE, CEO, Make UK; Austen Okonweze, Deputy Director, Engagement & Planning, Industrial Strategy, BEIS; Elizabeth Crowley, Senior Policy Adviser for Skills at CIPD. Chaired by: Lord David Willetts, former Minister of State for Universities and Science, and Chairman of the Foundation for Science and Technology. (In partnership with FST.)
12 November – Tackling economic crime in a Covid-19 world with Graeme Biggar CBE, Director General, National Economic Crime Centre, National Crime Agency;
Chris Greany, Managing Director, Templar Executives. Chaired by: Simon Collins, Chairman, Resilience First.
27 November – Airport Innovation Day. (In partnership with Intel.)
1 December – Moving forward from the pandemic with Vernon Everitt, Managing Director, Customers, Communication and Technology, TfL. (In partnership with Atkins.)
12 January 2021 – Resilience First in conversation with Shirley Rodrigues, Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment, Greater London Authority.
27 January 2021 – Reinventing the hospitality sector in a Covid-19 world with Darren Carter, Head of Security, Edwardian Hotels London. More speakers tbc.
* Please note that these webinars and events may be subject to change.
To register for these webinars or for more information, please click here.
