What is ClimateWise?
"This is just the beginning of the process of real change. Time is a luxury we do not have and I urge companies both at home and internationally to sign the ClimateWise principles and take the necessary action."
HRH The Prince of Wales
ClimateWise is the global insurance industry’s leadership group on climate change.
In 2007, representatives from all parts of the industry, including primary insurers (life and non-life), reinsurers, brokers, risk modellers and industry bodies, came together to design and launch the ClimateWise Principles. These Principles commit ClimateWise members to a wide range of actions, both individually and through strategic partnerships, to reduce the systemic risks of climate change to a sustainable level.
With 16 founding signatories, ClimateWise membership has now grown to include over 40 global insurance brands across Europe, Asia, Southern Africa and North America. Further growth is expected as the group continues to pioneer the global insurance industry’s response to the risks and opportunities of climate change.
CPSL facilitates the ClimateWise initiative, alongside our other corporate leaders groups, through the provision of Secretariat services. In 2009, we launched a range of ClimateWise Collaborations with the ClimateWise members, applying our experience of collaborative learning, leadership and change models to some of the most challenging ‘system-wide’ issues that insurers, and society, face on the climate change agenda. More details can be found on the ClimateWise website.
The ClimateWise group welcomes expressions of interest from insurers around the world. Please contact the ClimateWise Secretariat in the first instance.
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.
Sustainable Claims Management
About the Collaboration
This collaboration aims to indentify 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 2010’ report. 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.
The report also recommended the need for voluntary Sustainable Claims Management (SCM) guidelines to be drawn up. The collaboration has been working with the Carbon Trust to identify which elements of the claims cycle have the highest environmental impact and is taking forward work to raise awareness and uptake of sustainable material usage and repairs across the industry
Reports and Outputs
Download the Sustainable Claims Management report.
Climate Change and Health
About the Collaboration
This collaboration aims to find ways to protect people from health risks brought about by climate change. Public health experts are increasingly demonstrating the evidence of mortality and morbidity impacts from extreme weather events like heat waves and flooding.
On 21 October 2010 the Climate Change and Health Working Group convened a high-level roundtable to bring together key health and protection representatives with leading environmental epidemiologists to plan what the industry can do collaboratively going forward.
This resulted in the decision to carry out an industry-wide data mining study to understand whether extreme weather is making a noticeable impact on claims. This will hopefully improve understanding in order to inform future welfare provision.
Adaptation in the Developing World
About the Collaboration
This collaboration focuses on ways to reduce the vulnerability of the developing world to weather extremes.
In September 2010 ClimateWise, in collaboration with three other insurance initiatives – the insurers of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, The Geneva Association and the Munich Climate Insurance Initiatiave (MCII) – launched a global insurance industry statement on adapting to climate change in developing countries.
Following on from this, ClimateWise members are working with researchers at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics to deepen understanding about the key components that would allow public-private schemes to be both commercially viable and deliver physical risk reduction outcomes. A compendium of over 100 existing schemes has been brought together and a selection identified for deeper analysis to inform the design and development of future disaster risk reduction schemes.
Reports and Outputs
Download the Global Insurance Industry Statement.
Promoting Resilience
About the Collaboration
This collaboration aims to explore the role of insurers in increasing customer resilience to weather events.
Take-up of loss prevention measures is very low, even by those affected by a catastrophic event. ClimateWise members agreed there was a need to better understand the role of insurers in promoting actions that deliver loss prevention in existing insurance markets.
Work focussed last year on collecting a series of case studies to demonstrate how insurers were promoting loss prevention. This was brought together into a report, ‘Adapting to the Extreme Weather Impacts of Climate Change 2010’ and launched on 1st December 2010.
Members will further collaborate on improving their ability to reward resilience, with an expected focus on understanding how perception of climate change risk affects how risk mitigation measures should be incentivised and communicated.
Reports and Outputs
Download the report Adapting to the Extreme Weather Impacts of Climate Change.
Sustainable Investment
About the Collaboration
This collaboration aims to work towards mainstreaming low carbon investment in insurer's fixed income portfolios.
The collaboration was instigated following attendance at the P8 Summit February 2011. As significant institutional investors, interest was expressed in exploring the relationship between the regulatory environment in which insurers invest and their ability to engage in new investment opportunities for national and international climate financing.
Members agreed there was value in an explicit focus on fixed income assets due to the importance of these assets to insurers with long term liabilities and the relative lack of attention that this asset class has received so far (compared to equities and property) in the context of the risks and opportunities of climate change.
On 5 December 2011, to coincide with the Fifth Global Business Day at the climate negotiations in Durban, institutional investors Allianz, Aviva, Legal and General and Swiss Re, with Investment and Pension Advisors Aon Hewitt put out a statement articulating a collective demand to influence product offerings and avoid unintended consequences of financial regulation. The insurers want to draw attention to the gap between the low carbon investment needed and the fixed income carbon investments available and suggest solutions to address this.
Reports and Outputs
Download the Fixed Income Investment Statement.
| What is ClimateWise?
A video describing the ClimateWise initiative, the global insurance industry’s leadership group on climate change. |
| ClimateWise Fourth Annual Summit: Highlights. 5:05 mins
Highlights from the ClimateWise Fourth Annual Summit, which was held on 21 November 2011 in London. |
| Paul Abberley, Aviva Investors London: Investing in the Future
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. |
| Jon Williams, PwC: The ClimateWise Third Year Review
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. |
| Dr Paul Pritchard, RSA and Dr Swenja Surminski, LSE: The Role of Insurers in Adaptation
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. |
| Dane Loosley, Allianz & Mark Burr, Lloyd’s: ClimateWise Sustainable Claims Management
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. |
| Andrew Voysey, ClimateWise Secretary: Research - Adaptation in the Developing World, Climate Change & Health
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. |
| HRH The Prince of Wales: ClimateWise's Second Year Achievements
In this video, The Prince of Wales addresses ClimateWise members on their progress against the Principles at the Second Year Review, November 2009. |
| The Prince of Wales: Launching the ClimateWise Principles
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.
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| Archie Kane, former Chairman, ABI: What climate change means for insurers
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. |
| ClimateWise CEOs: How insurers are responding to climate change
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. |
| Tom Woolgrove, RBSI: What ClimateWise means for insurers
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. |