ClimateWise is the global insurance industry’s leadership group to drive action on climate change risk and is facilitated by CPSL. Our international membership covers Asia, Europe, North America and Southern Africa. The group leverages the insurance industry’s expertise to better understand, communicate and act on climate risks. Members commit to action against the ClimateWise Principles and are independently reviewed against these annually. The ClimateWise Principles were launched in September 2007 by HRH The Prince of Wales, who had previously called on the insurance industry to offer a more proactive and collaborative effort to help reduce the risk of climate change for us all. ClimateWise members undertake collaborations to support the Principles where action needs to be taken at the industry or system level. Collaborations may involve insurers, other businesses, policymakers and academics.
Visit the ClimateWise website.
ClimateWise leverages the insurance industry’s expertise to better understand, communicate and act on climate change risk. Members, comprised of representatives from all parts of the industry, commit to action following six key principles and are reviewed against these annually.
We are currently revising the compliance criteria to ensure that assessment of member activity continues to drive action and to allow for a clearer measurement of impact.
Proposals are now being requested to develop this new compliance criteria. Read further details.
The deadline for submissions from interested parties is Tuesday May 14 2013 at 17:00 BST.
The latest in a series of physical workshops to develop the ClimateWise Resilient Cities Collaboration took place in San Diego on 27 and 28 March 2013, kindly hosted by the University of San Diego. Over 50 senior leaders from US and Canadian insurance and reinsurance companies, infrastructure providers, commercial property owners and investors and city and state authorities met together to identify ways in which collaboration can really be made to work to create a more climate-resilient San Diego.
Read more on the ClimateWise website.
Kunio Ishihara, Chairman of Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance, Japan's leading general insurance company, has written for ClimateWise's Thought Leadership series. His article discusses the role of insurers in supply chain resilience, and where climate change poses particular threats to these supply chains across Asian markets.
Download ClimateWise Thought Leadership Article Series Issue Three.
A new study from ClimateWise could remove an obstacle to Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), but risk sharing with government is still required.
The 'Managing Liabilities of European Carbon Capture & Storage' risk-management study identifies the potential to remove a barrier to the development of CCS technology at scale in Europe, paving the way for more effective action to prevent climate change. The proposal put forward addresses the problem of unlimited liability associated with the risk of leakage of carbon dioxide from storage sites.
Read the Press Release.
Read the Full Report.
Read the Summary for Decision-makers (12 pages).
This year marks the Fifth Anniversary of the ClimateWise initiative. Since its establishment members have made significant progress towards understanding and responding to the risks and opportunities posed by climate change. The group continues to play a clear leadership role for the wider insurance industry.
The 5th Annual Review, independently conducted by PwC, shows that in 2011/12 members achieved record compliance of 92% with the core ClimateWise Principles. Of particular note were advances in research and data for modelling risk, increased engagement with policymakers, and the development of new products and services.
Read the 5th Annual Review Executive Summary.
Visit the ClimateWise website to download the full report.
Reducing the environmental impact of the claims process can be cost-effective and of benefit to customers. Contact the ClimateWise Secretariat to sign up to industry-wide guidance launched at the Association of British Insurer’s Property Conference.
Read more.
ClimateWise is requesting proposals to carry out the fifth independent review of adherence to the ClimateWise principles.
The deadline for submissions from interested parties is Tuesday May 8, 2012 at 17:00 GMT.
Mr John R Coomber, member of the Board of Directors of global reinsurer Swiss Re, will become the new Chairman of ClimateWise on 1 October 2011. Mr Coomber succeeds Andrew Torrance, CEO of Allianz Insurance, who has completed his three-year term.
Read the press release.
Read an opinion piece by John Coomber: How do we protect growth in a world of ‘new normals’?
The ClimateWise Principles provide a holistic framework for action by insurance companies covering all aspects of their business operations, including their investment strategies, how they raise customer awareness of climate risk and encourage behavioural change with products and services and also how they inform public policy. All ClimateWise members produce an annual report detailing their activities against the ClimateWise Principles and an independent review is published by a third party.
The members of ClimateWise have been working together since 2009 on a number of collaborations to further develop cross-industry responses to the challenge of climate change, as well as continuing to offer a common and progressive insurer voice to the international policy-making process under the UNFCCC.
Read the ClimateWise Principles.
For Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to play a meaningful role in reducing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere while fossil fuels continue to feature in our energy mix, the technology must be commercially deployable. If this can be achieved, significant new economic activity in the energy sector beckons.
CPSL has run a series of workshops and has identified appropriate industry and academic expertise to support this collaboration. The process is enabling ClimateWise members to understand in more detail the nature of the long term liabilities of most concern to prospective CCS operators, and to work to understand how different Financial Security instruments could technically be developed in a commercial marketplace context. Read about the collaboration’s latest work.
This collaboration aims to identify how the insurance industry as a whole can reduce the environmental costs of the claims process. The first stage of this collaboration culminated in the Sustainable Claims Management report in 2010. With a focus on domestic property claims, the report takes into account the lessons learnt from similar initiatives within the motor and commercial property sectors and identifies many low-cost or no-cost opportunities for insurers to increase the sustainability of the process by which insured property is indemnified.
Guidance on implementing a process to reduce the environmental impact of domestic property claims, applicable to all types of business, was launched at the 2012 Association of British Insurer’s Property Conference. Read about the collaboration’s latest work.
The dramatic rise in weather-related losses over recent years poses challenges to the liveability and insurability of different geographies. Further, losses associated with climatic events are increasingly concentrated in urban regions, not least because of the concentration of economic assets found in cities. This collaboration aims to produce a systemic understanding of where the business models of the micro-economic players and the macro-economic enablers in a city already overlap, and therefore enable collaboration to achieve greater resilience, and where they do not, preventing the collaborative response that many call for. This collaboration is focused on North American cities and is being delivered through a partnership between ClimateWise, its Secretariat at the University of Cambridge (CPSL) and Ceres, the US-based advocacy group for business leadership on sustainability. Read about the collaboration’s latest work.
Not mitigating climate change has serious implications for corporate performance. Consequently investment allocation and portfolio management that does not take into account climate risks and opportunities will undermine long term growth and financial stability. ClimateWise members are taking both a qualitative and quantative approach to considering the impact of climate risks and opportunities as they relate to asset allocation. Building on the Mercer ‘Climate Change Scenarios Study – Implications for Strategic Asset Allocation’, both a review of existing practice and a consideration of regulation as it impacts on the materiality of climate risks and opportunities is being undertaken. Read about the collaboration’s latest work.
A video describing the ClimateWise initiative, the global insurance industry’s leadership group on climate change.
Mark Way, Head of Sustainability - Americas for Swiss Re and CPSL Alumnus discusses the importance of urban resilience to the insurance industry and what the sector can do to respond to the numerous increasing risks to our cities - not least climate change related risk.
Highlights from the ClimateWise Fourth Annual Summit, which was held on 21 November 2011 in London.
In this video, Paul Abberley, CEO, Aviva Investors London, speaking at the ClimateWise Third Year Review, 1 December 2010 on the role of investors in responding to the risks of climate change.
In this video, Jon Williams, Partner, Sustainability and Climate Change, PwC presents the key findings of the ClimateWise Third Year Review in 1 December 2010.
In this video, Dr Paul Pritchard, UK Head of Corporate Responsibility, RSA Group & Dr Swenja Surminski, Senior Research Fellow, London School of Economics discuss the ClimateWise 2010 collaboration on the Role of Insurers in Adaptation at the Third Year Progress event, 1 December 2010.
In this video, Dane Loosley, Divisional Claims Manager, Allianz Insurance and Mark Burr, Senior Claims Manager, Lloyd’s launch the first stage of ClimateWise's Sustainable Claims Management research.
In this video, Andrew Voysey discusses the outcomes of ClimateWise's Adaptation in the Developing World and Climate Change & Health 2010 Collaborations at the Third Year Progress event, 1 December 2010.
In this video, The Prince of Wales addresses ClimateWise members on their progress against the Principles at the Second Year Review, November 2009.
In this video, The Prince of Wales delivers his keynote speech at the launch of the ClimateWise initiative in September 2007. ClimateWise is the insurance industry's initiative to reduce the risk of climate change for us all.
In this video, Archie Kane, former Chairman of the Association of British Insurers, speaks at the September 2007 launch of the ClimateWise initiative. ClimateWise signatories, all from the insurance industry, are striving to reduce the risk of climate change for us all.
In this video, CEOs from founder signatories of ClimateWise partake in a Q&A session at the launch of the ClimateWise principles in September 2007 to help us understand how the insurance sector is working to reduce the risk of climate change for us all.
In this video, Tom Woolgrove, former Chief of HBOS, details what ClimateWise means for the insurance industry as it works pro-actively to reduce the risk of climate change for us all at the launch in September 2007.
For more details, please contact:Andrew Voysey, Senior Programme ManagerT: +44 (0)20 7216 7530F: +44 (0) 1223 768831andrew.voysey@cpsl.cam.ac.ukClimateWise website
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