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Tackling Climate Risk

We recognise that as actuaries we possess a strong blend of problem solving, strategic and risk evaluation skills, and experience that can be brought to bear in meeting the challenge of strengthening resilience to climate change related risks.

While accepting that we are small relative to many of our clients we nonetheless aim to work with and support clients with Goal 13.3: to “Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning“.

One of our education goals is to develop staff awareness and skills to do more of this work.  To play our part in developing industry knowledge, we will incorporate and share our learning through our ongoing lunch and learns with clients and by writing and distributing articles and white papers.

One of our senior actuaries has developed a detailed suite of training material covering climate change and climate-related risk as they relate to actuaries. He has also written a recent opinion piece on what actuaries can do to support efforts to combat climate change:

Climate change – what can actuaries do?

While our carbon footprint is relatively small, we recognise the need to do our part and get to Net Zero.  Our 2020-21 year footprint of 139 Tonnes of CO2 Equivalent, and the biggest aspects were Purchased Goods and Service (74^t) and Employee Commute (62^t).

With the impact of COVID-19 over the reporting year the Employee commute was dominated by teleworking emissions, and is therefore likely to be artificially low.  As we develop our plans on longer-term working practices we will strive to lock in some of the reductions, for example via promoting flexible working, while encouraging with our office providers, and our own staff, to move to renewable tariffs.

For Purchased Goods and Services we will be contacting all our suppliers over the coming months to engage proactively with them regarding our journey to improve sustainability, and how we can collaborate to reduce our combined emissions.

Click here to return to our sustainability pillars.