Theme: 1. Adaptation

Topic Area: 1b. Climate Risk Assessment for Government, Commercial, Civilian Resilience

Background/Objectives:

A 2021 Bloomberg report estimated that the climate adaptation market could be worth $2 trillion a year within the following five years. Meanwhile, only 7% of climate investment is dedicated to adaptation while NOAA reports billion-dollar disasters per year hit an unprecedented high in 2023.

Climate risk is starting to be integrated in the risk management world. Join four professionals from the design, insurance, litigation, and construction sectors to discuss how climate risk affects their industries, what the resilience innovation and trends are and how collaborations are moving the real estate sector towards a resilient future.

We will structure our session as a moderated conversation with all presenters contributing. The main themes will be covered by those noted below.

Jenna Kirkpatrick Howard will discuss the current state of property insurance for commercial real estate, how rising insurance rates are impacting NOIs of CRE assets, climate change modeling impacting insurance premiums, and will share examples of insurers giving preferred pricing to property owners who make resilience investments
Jessica Mederson will cover the potential effects of climate change on future design and construction litigation
Julie Pietrzak will discuss how climate resilience is being incorporated into buildings and infrastructure and provide case studies that preserve asset value during climate hazard events
Monika Serrano will share case studies of how climate hazards like extreme heat are being mitigated in the construction phase

Approach/Activities:

Presenters will discuss the topics below. Time will be allocated for Q&A with the audience.

As climate risk continues to become integrated with standard due diligence and risk management processes, it’s essential to stay up to date on the latest news and trends in the space of climate adaptation and resilience. We will discuss the latest news regarding insurance availability in markets across the US and how that may be affecting commercial real estate. We will highlight changes to insurance modeling for catastrophe events based on climate change and data collection for property owners. We will discuss how litigation related to climate change is joining the extensive list of construction-related litigation and how incorporating resilience and identifying the parties responsible for addressing resilience early in the process is a way to avoid litigation. We will provide case studies of commercial projects incorporating resilience across the country.

Results/Lessons Learned:

Identify the current state of property insurance, predictive modeling changes, and how data collection is more important than ever before
Understand how to prevent climate change related litigation
Identify real life examples from the built environment incorporating resilience
Recognize ways to identify the ROI from resilience

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Jenna Howard