RSA seeing is believing: a time to paws for thought

WWF Canada

By Louise Shield, RSA Director of External Communications
It also highlighted how crucial our role is, as an industry to help affect change in the behaviour of our organisations, in our customers and, in the institutions that govern us.
Increasingly we are trying to understand systemic risk better, whereby environmental, social and economic factors interact to create major business impacts, such as the collapse of Chilean aquaculture in 2007 through poor planning, infectious disease and increased precipitation – potentially brought on by the changing climate.
Through our partnership with WWF we really are partnering for progress on climate change. We’re trying to review how climate risk can be incorporated into pensions, assessing how much carbon is used in our home insurance supply chain and of course engaging our global workforce through this Arctic trip. This trip has really brought home the reality of climate change to me and my colleagues and I am grateful to WWF for allowing us to be here. I know that we will become huge advocates for change within our business and the wider world.

(c) Gerald Allain
I was never a climate change sceptic but this trip has opened my eyes to the realities of climate change in the most amazing way. The Arctic is the “canary in the coalmine” and we ignore the effects of climate change here at our peril. The melting sea ice is a huge demonstration of the damage we are doing to our planet.
I think our industry faces some major risks from a melting Arctic, from sea level rise to increasing global temperatures. We have the ability to help incentivise our customers to understand the risks of operating here and to do so safely. Together as an industry we can help to tackle climate change through the United Nations Environment Programme Insurance Working Group and Climatewise but we all need to reduce our own impacts and consider the risks we underwrite.
The insurance industry can make a difference and need to take the opportunity to do so.