Sustainability hub

Learn about our work on climate change and sustainability

 

The greatest challenge of our time

Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time. In 2017, we issued our first risk alert. Since then, governments, businesses, and regulators have increasingly recognised that climate change and sustainability-related issues represent a material financial risk to future economic and market conditions.

It’s even more crucial now that actuaries are aware of these issues and that they appropriately take them into account. Members need to appropriately consider, and communicate clearly, the impact of climate change and sustainability issues or risks within their actuarial work.

Read what climate change means for the actuarial profession, including the risks and opportunities, in our comment piece: the greatest challenge of our time.

In this video Louise Pryor, Past President of the IFoA, discusses the role of the actuarial profession in sustainability and fighting climate change.

News

Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail

14 March 24
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IEMA and IFoA publish updated User Guide to Climate-Related Financial Disclosures

22 February 24
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Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios – a warning for financial services

04 July 23
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Reports and research

Our joint report with the Climate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG) looks at how actuarial risk-management techniques can be applied to the climate change problem.

Climate Emergency – tipping the odds in our favour

June 2022

We contributed to this report from the Joint Forum on Actuarial Regulation. It explores the science behind climate change and its relation to actuarial work. Download PDF 8.5 MB

October 2021

To help your understanding of how climate-related risk plays a role in the work of actuaries, the IFoA’s Actuarial Review Team has completed an information-gathering exercise.

The report finds that actuaries are among those leading the thinking on climate-related risk. The key areas of work carried out by actuaries are scenario modelling, stress testing, and working alongside others in asset management.

Read the report

June 2020

Climate change will fundamentally impact how economies perform. It will affect macroeconomic variables such as GDP growth and in turn influence the resulting performance of asset classes and industry sectors.

In this paper we examine the long-term economic and financial impacts projected by a model that combines climate science with macro-economic and financial effects.

Read the paper (4 MB PDF)

Sustainability consultation responses

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

“Policy and thought leadership on this subject has never been more important. I’m proud that the actuarial profession is able to step forward with a range of policy initiatives and incisive thought leadership to support a transition to a sustainable future.” – Louise Pryor, IFoA Past President

Thought leadership

Sustainability on the IFoA blog

Read our members’ thought leadership on sustainability: from how actuaries can make an impact, to giving evidence in the UK Parliament.
Read blog

Thought leadership webinar series

Ahead of COP26, leading experts met with our global membership. They discussed key sustainability issues where actuarial science and the interests of wider society meet.
Watch series

Sustainability research working parties

Our sustainability practice area is active in member-led research, from biodiversity to implications of net zero for investment portfolios.
Read more