Fund managers offered access to climate change research

RMS will provide access to its products and services through the Climate Change Research Facilitation Programme, including real-time information on global catastrophes and their estimated insured and uninsured impacts.

This information can be used by fund managers to direct investment decisions on sectors likely to be positively or negatively impacted by an event and to understand and hedge against severe potential losses, RMS said.

Climate-risk analyses will also be made available to help fund managers quantify their direct and indirect exposure to catastrophic risk and develop strategies to manage and transfer the risk effectively.

Jason Futers, vice president at RMS, said: "The current turmoil in the financial markets acutely illustrates the importance of having sound risk-management processes in place and the potentially dire pitfalls of inadequate due diligence.

"Climate change is not just a future threat – it is already having an impact today, and fund managers have a duty to their investors to understand how it can affect their portfolio risk."

Other services RMS will provide include climate-risk analyses that will help fund managers quantify their direct and indirect exposure to catastrophic risk and develop strategies to manage and transfer the risk. Hot spots of future risk to properties, operations and supply chains can also be identified through a climate-change risk screen.

Celine Herweijer, director of the RMS climate-change practice, said: "Prudent businesses are beginning to ask how and where climate change will materially impact their operations, value chain, investments and wider commercial environment.

"They realise climate change is not only altering their risk landscape, but necessitating a longer-term outlook and that understanding this future risk is the first step to reducing it."