Biodiversity risk is no longer just an emerging risk to organisations and the insurance sector but an ever-present reality. Biodiversity is intertwined with natural catastrophe risk as degraded coastal habitats offer lower protection against extreme events like storm surges, which will only become more intense and frequent with climate change. Furthermore, legal and reputational risks from impacting critical biodiversity, as well as the elevated risk of pollution in biodiverse areas suggest that all organisations and insurers should be taking biodiversity into consideration. The Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) is the world’s leading risk screening tool for biodiversity and the commercial data provider for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, The World Database on Protected Areas and The World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas. This session will introduce IBAT and discuss the use of the tool in the context of insurance to help manage risk, identify opportunities and encourage good practice.
Learning Objectives:
After this session, you will be able to
- Recognise the importance of biodiversity risk
- Identify how biodiversity risk is intertwined with other risks
- Explain who IBAT is, how the IBAT tool works, and how this can be deployed by organisations as part of their ESG risk strategy
- Understand how the IBAT tool can also be used in the context of insurance