The human aspects of climate and business: the climate-health nexus

The human aspects of climate and business: the climate-health nexus

Chapter Zero is working with Wellcome to ensure boardrooms are addressing the critical climate-related health issues as part of good governance. The partnership and this publication highlight that climate-health impacts are here, they are (becoming increasingly) material, they are by and large not being considered strategically by boards and the time for board action is now.

The human aspects of climate and business: the climate-health nexus

Foreword from Wellcome

Climate change is already undermining global security and prosperity, and further significant impacts on human health, wellbeing and livelihoods are inevitable. In recent years, we have seen with our own eyes that heatwaves, droughts, floods and storms are increasingly common and climate science indicates that this situation will continue to deteriorate. This is the new climate reality for which we are dangerously ill-prepared.

Why climate-related health risk is a corporate governance issue

Climate risk – including the acute, human risk of extreme heat, drought and flooding – sits within, not alongside, directors’ existing fiduciary and care duties across every sector, says Julie Hirigoyen, Non-executive Director on the boards of Willmott Dixon Holdings Ltd, The Kings Cross Group and Thriving Investments Ltd; and independent sustainability advisor and member of Chapter Zero.

Climate and health: the standard setter’s view

Richard Barker, Board Member of the International Sustainability Standards Board, says that while companies might carry climate-health-related risks, a couple of hurdles need to be jumped for information about those risks to be reported to investors. The first is that they must potentially affect the company’s financial prospects. The second is that those effects must be capable of affecting an investor’s decision about financing the company. There is judgement in this. It is for a company itself to decide on information about its business that is material to its investors. To the extent that climate-health risks can be expected to grow in scale and scope, disclosure about them would grow also.

Climate and health: boards, committees and the strategic discussion

For most boards, health and climate have traditionally been separate agenda items and different risk categories, writes Gillian Karran-Cumberlege, Head of Chair Advisory and Co-Founder Fidelio Partners, and Chapter Zero Fellow. She points out that, arguably, the primary challenge for boards is navigating increasingly interconnected risks and the interplay of climate and health is becoming one of the best examples of this.

Boards are not discussing climate and health because there is a measurement gap

Tina Mavraki is a FTSE100 Board Director, executive leader and advisor across industries; she is also a Chapter Zero Fellow. She reminds us of the old adage that you cannot manage what you cannot measure. That is why, to date, conversations about climate-health risks are largely absent in the boardroom.

Climate and health awareness, framing and governance – views from the membership

Chapter Zero members and Fellows have helped put climate and health boardroom conversations into context to enable us to understand the status quo from the boardroom point of view and learn how these nascent conversations are being governed.

Financial services: climate-health risks don’t yet feature in strategic conversations

In the financial services sector, climate risk is no longer just about compliance; increasingly it is seen through the lens of business opportunity. But climate-health conversations don’t yet show up at the strategic level. They are a ‘second order’ discussion for banks and asset managers. It is in the insurance industry where climate-health lands commercially.