From greening the built environment to investing in nature, here’s what to look out for in New York Climate Week.
New York Climate Week, launching on Sunday, September 17, will once again focus minds on the urgent business of tackling climate change. With the world having experienced its hottest July on record, and summer infernos blazing from Greece to Hawaii, the scale of the challenge could not be more apparent.
In 2023, New York Climate Week will revolve around ten main themes: built environment, energy, environmental justice, transport, finance, sustainable living, nature, politics, industry and food.
In our support of industry, an important topic for Marsh is the mapping of climate vulnerabilities in supply chains. Recent issues, such as how the drought in the Panama Canal has affected shipping, highlight the importance of this topic – and bring to light the kind of risks explored in relation to the Suez Canal in Marsh’s report last year.
Here are four additional themes on the New York Climate Week program we’ll be watching closely.
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- Built environment
- Energy
- Nature
- Finance
New materials and methods can make buildings greener and more resilient – but they can also create new risks. The involvement of insurers is critical for enabling construction projects to mitigate the risks and speed the uptake of these methods and materials.
Examples include cross-laminated timber, a strong and lightweight construction material that can have a low carbon footprint, if the wood used to make it comes from well managed forests. However, it is a relatively novel material, leading to insurance industry discussions about quantifying and managing the risk.
Cement is among the hardest-to-abate industries, but various ways to lower its carbon footprint are being developed – such as replacing a portion of the cement in concrete with various waste byproducts from industry or agriculture. From an insurance perspective, it is important to be confident that non-standard concrete mixes are insurable during the construction period and for the structure’s operational life.
