Building resilience to extreme weather risks with forward-looking data
Extreme weather is one of the most pressing business challenges of our time. With the world experiencing more intense heatwaves, rising sea levels and increasingly severe natural hazards, businesses are tackling the present day and future risks confronting their organizations.
At the same time, expectations and obligations are growing for businesses to identify, manage and report on their weather-related risks to demonstrate their business resilience and economic sustainability.
Forward-looking data and analysis can help customers identify and map their extreme weather risks, quantify the impact to their organization and make informed critical capital allocation decisions. It is created based on climate model outputs, which are driven by assumptions that consider a range of human, geopolitical and socio-economic factors. And it is because the range of contributing factors is so large, that multiple climate scenarios are required to understand the range of risks that could evolve in time.
How forward-looking data can help you build greater resilience to extreme weather
Understand financial exposure Understanding your financial exposure to current and future weather-related risks – both “acute” (e.g. extreme weather events) and “chronic” (e.g. changing sea levels) – enables you to proactively take the appropriate steps to protect your business.
By identifying and incorporating your vulnerabilities into loss quantifications using various weather-related perils and change scenarios, you can make smart decisions that are aligned to your organization’s overall risk appetite, and deploy budget and resources efficiently to strengthen infrastructure, protect your workforce and the communities you operate in, adjust insurance coverage and stay compliant with regulations.
Quantify risk for capital investment and asset management Using forward-looking climate data helps investment and asset management teams optimize and future-proof their investments. It allows them to assess their sustainability and resilience strategies long-term, ensuring better informed risk management decisions. By integrating climate projections, companies can better quantify potential impacts on asset values, insurance costs and operational expenses before making critical decisions.
This proactive approach aids in strategic planning, enhances portfolio diversification and promotes investments in resilient assets. Ultimately, it helps mitigate financial risks and capitalize on emerging market trends driven by climate change and the transition to net-zero.
Inform supply chain management Identifying vulnerabilities in the supply chain is crucial for companies’ risk management and business continuity agendas. By pinpointing at-risk suppliers based on their criticality, businesses can adopt a data-driven approach to supplier due diligence, collaboration and diversification, optimize logistics and invest in resilient infrastructure.
Weather data supports scenario planning, helping ensure robust business continuity plans against extreme weather and long-term climate shifts which, if untreated, can have a significant financial and reputational impact.
Organizational alignment and decision-making
Using forward-looking data fosters cross-functional collaboration by providing a consistent, data-driven foundation for decision-making. It enables diverse teams— such as Risk Management, Sustainability, Procurement, Finance and Operations—to align strategies towards shared goals.
Sharing weather projections allows teams to identify vulnerabilities, and together develop mitigation plans and implement adaptive measures. This integrated approach ensures consistency, enhances communication, and streamlines efforts across departments.
Have confidence in the decisions you make ZRS’s proprietary climate data
Flexibility Update metrics flexibly to meet customer needs and incorporate expert guidance.
Consistency Provide an integrated view of current and future hazards using natural hazards modeling expertise.
Transparency Ensure full visibility of modeling methodology, assumptions and limitations for better interpretation.
Scalability Utilize a global dataset for analyzing larger portfolios and specific locations.
Granularity Link event frequency to a range of extreme events corresponding to return periods.
Quality Maintain rigorous approval processes to ensure data suitability for business and stakeholders!
Flexibility Update metrics flexibly to meet customer needs and incorporate expert guidance.
Consistency Provide an integrated view of current and future hazards using natural hazards modeling expertise.
Transparency Ensure full visibility of modeling methodology, assumptions and limitations for better interpretation.
Scalability Utilize a global dataset for analyzing larger portfolios and specific locations.
Granularity Link event frequency to a range of extreme events corresponding to return periods.
Quality Maintain rigorous approval processes to ensure data suitability for business and stakeholders!
ZRS Climate Spotlight
Climate Spotlight features an interactive visual climate risk dashboard that uses ZRS’ proprietary weather data and market-leading risk analysis methodology to help organizations chart evolving climate risks, model future climate scenarios, quantify impacts and make confident investment and adaptation decisions. Using our tool, customers can understand their risks at the portfolio level down to the location level, and take action to build resilience to climate impacts now and in the future.
Features
Maps risk for 10+ climate perils
Flood (pluvial and fluvial), Storm Surge, Precipitation, Hail, Wind, Heat, Cold, Drought, Tornado, Sea Level Rise
Runs best-to-worst-case climate scenarios
SSP1-2.6 (<2°C), SSP2-4.5 (~2°C), SSP3-7.0 (~3.6°C), SSP5-8.5 (>4°C)
Plots different future time horizons up to 2100
Current, Near-term (~2030), Mid-term (~2060), Long-term (~2090)
Quantifies impact on assets, values, people and revenue
Helps leaders make critical capital allocation decisions
Output benefits
Identifies highest risk locations to prioritize for detailed risk assessments and requisite adaptation measures
Key inputs for climate related disclosures
Supports stakeholders’ strategic approach to climate adaptation by prioritizing actions and investments
Supports robust business continuity planning and financial impact analysis on key climate perils
Ability to analyze supplier and local infrastructure exposures
