It was an eventful start to September for Azizi Consulting as we had the pleasure of participating in the GARP (Global Association of Risk Professionals) Workshop on Financial Implications and Opportunities in Sustainability and Climate Risk.

Climate risk is no longer a distant concern for businesses, governments and economies.

If overlooked, climate risks, such as erratic weather patterns, including heatwaves or flush floods, can lead to infrastructure damage, power outages, transportation disturbances and disruption of the supply chain. These can result in disruption of operations and lost productivity, leading to reputational damage.

Climate risk assessment allows the executive leadership to identify areas of vulnerability in their operations that could be affected by climate risk and prioritize the risk mitigation strategies—be it by relocating facilities or adopting preventive measures, such as elevated foundations, to minimize losses from extreme weather.

As the world seeks to transition to a low-carbon economy, a climate risk assessment also enables the leadership to forecast the climate policies that could impact their processes and plan to transition accordingly. For example, start investing in clean technologies or even identify markets emerging from a growing demand for clean energy and capitalize on the new market opportunities.

Filling the Gap with GARP

The GARP workshop was thus timely. It provided a resourceful forum to reflect on the importance of organizations proactively managing climate risk, including undertaking a Sustainability Risk Maturity Assessment to check on:

1. Governance: policies to guide the organization in implementing sustainability, informing the Board’s oversight and outlining the management roles.
2. Processes: integrating sustainability into what the organization does.
3. M&E framework: access implementation and impact of sustainability initiatives by the organization—the ratio of what we say and what we do as an organisation.

For more information on Azizi Consulting’s Climate Risk Assessment and Sustainability advisory, please get in touch with us at riskmgt@aziziconsulting.com