Environmental issues at the heart of business leaders’ concerns – report

Only 12% of business leaders in 10 industry sectors in the UK and US ranked environmental concerns – including pandemic, climate change, environmental damage, food safety and energy transition – as their main risk category in 2021, falling to just 9% before 2022, according to the study.

Beazley’s research has indicated that companies can focus much of their efforts on the interconnected legal, reputational and regulatory risks of environmental, social, and government reporting compliance rather than actively addressing environmental risks. Eighteen percent (18%) ranked political and regulatory risks as their top concern in 2021, according to the report.

“Discussions and announcements at the recent COP26 summit demonstrate the growing pressure from stakeholders, government and regulation that businesses now face to align their operational practices with the rapidly evolving environmental agenda,” said said Chris Illman, responsible business manager at Beazley. “Failure to do so will increase legal, reputational and regulatory risks. It is therefore surprising and concerning that our research reveals that environmental risks are so low on the list of concerns for business leaders.

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Illman said mitigating environmental risks presented a significant challenge for insurers.

“The complexity and interconnectivity of risks have the potential to generate claims that overlap with traditional areas – from pollution and environmental damage to new areas of risk like greenwashing and reputational damage,” he said. he declares. “But they also represent an opportunity for specialty insurers like Beazley to work with their clients to go beyond simple risk transfer to improve risk management and mitigation to minimize the likelihood of a risk event. loss.”