Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)
Resilient Cities Phase I: Sustainable Cities
Understanding how the insurance industry can collaborate with cities to enhance climate resilience.
The 2013 Sustainable Cities study highlighted how city adaptation to climate risk is of crucial interest to many stakeholders, especially the insurance sector. The study found direct links between strengthening climate resilience and increased investor confidence, which results in growing investment and sustainable growth. This creates new opportunities for both cities and the insurance sector.
This first phase of the urban resilience project introduced the concept of ‘resilience zones’, a focus on geographically bounded areas, within cities, that are particularly vulnerable to climate risk. Focusing on a resilience zone helps to concentrate and foster the market conditions needed to promote the necessary reinvestment in areas that would otherwise be burdened by unsustainable management costs and disinvestment pressures.
The study highlighted how the funding of Resilient Zones could be achieved by the addition of a market premium on to the values and rents of assets within such a zone linked to improved amenities and the guarantee of enhanced resilience. This would be most effective in areas with an ‘anchor tenant’ (such as a port or corporate/industrial campus) where the cost of relocation is so high that resilience zones become the obvious response.
November 2013 – This is one of three documents developed by insurance industry leaders and city stakeholders through the Building Climate Resilience in Cities workshop series convened by Ceres and ClimateWise in 2012 and 2013. This document distils the key priorities that emerged from the workshop series for collaborative action between key urban resiliency stakeholders to build climate resilience in cities.
November 2013 – ClimateWise publishes priorities, planning framework and toolkit. Urban resilience against the weather effects of climate change is an imperative of the insurance industry. It reduces losses, promotes insurability, and presents opportunities for innovative risk transfer and insurance solutions to help manage climate risk.
