RMS Develops New Climate Change Risk Screening Service

Newark, CA –  August 8, 2008 – Risk Management Solutions (RMS) has developed a new service to identify the potential physical impacts of climate change on a company’s property and operations. The RMS® Climate Change Risk Screening Service uses RMS’ proprietary natural catastrophe models, which calculate the risk of physical damages and business interruption from climate perils today, together with climate model output to "stress test" the impact of future potential scenarios on business portfolios.

Information on the impacts of climate change is combined with a range of physical and operational vulnerability measures - for example, a company’s capacity to adapt, its resiliency, and the sensitivities of its suppliers - to identify hotspots of future risk. The output is a detailed matrix of both qualitative and quantitative data on key risk factors for each property and operation within a portfolio, alongside a ranking of the properties most at risk to help prioritize adaptation needs.

The RMS Climate Change Risk Screening Service has already been applied as part of a broader "Climate Change Risk and Opportunity Assessment" for the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), one of the U.K.’s largest international publishing and business information organizations, and RMS’ parent company.  “DMGT commissioned RMS to review the wider impact of climate change across the Group, to complement the efforts we are making to measure and reduce our carbon footprint,”  said Matt Page, head of risk at DMGT. “This work will inform our corporate climate change strategy, which is driven by a thorough assessment of risks and opportunities to create business value.”

The assessment included an analysis of the direct and indirect risks to DMGT facilities from present-day climate catastrophe risk, along with the risks posed by physical changes in climate over the next 20 years.  In addition, RMS assessed the competitive and demand-issue risks and opportunities for DMGT companies arising from both physical changes to the climate, and the implications of climate change policy and the transition to a low-carbon economy.

“Climate change, and the global political and public response to it, presents a range of threats and opportunities for corporations in terms of their risk management, growth strategies and brand positioning.  The issue is shifting from a peripheral corporate social responsibility concern to a topic for strategic deliberation among executives and investors worldwide,” commented Dr Celine Herweijer, director of the RMS climate change practice. “While investors and risk managers can increasingly analyze the financial implications of climate policy, we have witnessed a demand for a tool to evaluate the physical impacts of climate change adaptation, and developed the new screening service to meet this need.”