Happy New Year! I hope you had a chance to unwind at the end of 2023. A reprieve of sorts before tackling 2024 head on.
“Tackle” sounds ominous, doesn’t it? I don’t say that in jest. I see the year ahead as a battle – not all bad, because battles ebb and flow, but an ongoing challenge to be sure. Like last year and many others, we will experience highs, perhaps collective incremental progress in our fight against climate change. However, I know we all agree that the progress could be dwarfed by critical challenges such as the ongoing protection gap, volatile economic and social issues, and high interest rates that are driving up costs for all of our businesses.
In the complexities of today’s landscape, our resiliency as individual members and collectively is directly tied to climate change and the resulting impact on our communities and our countries. Building resilience isn’t just a “nice to have” or merely a response to adversity. Resilience is an economic imperative, and this cannot be overstated. We need creative, whole-of-society partnerships and imaginative ideas that confront the climate crisis head on, because every day and every year that we don’t move forward with substantial action makes the action that will be required more difficult to achieve.
Lucky for us we’re part of a global community committed to doing just that. Last year, our member organisations had more than USD 1 trillion of assets under management in investments aligned to sustainable investment frameworks. That represents a 32 percent increase from the previous year. And our impact investing grew by more than 500 percent year-over-year. These are significant accomplishments.
Our partnership with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) demonstrates how the financial services and insurance industry can drive meaningful change. Through the UNDRR Investment Advisory Board and Resiliency Benchmark we are actively working to address gaps in disaster risk reduction financing and deliver best practices from membership examples to embed disaster risk reduction in insurance from the start – a shift from simply protecting the insured when disaster strikes to preventing disaster risks.
Recently, in the first quarterly outlook video of the year, Liz Green, our CEO designate, discussed how our members – as mostly national organisations – can benefit from membership in an international group to gain a world perspective. ICMIF as an organisation provides us with a unique opportunity to truly collaborate, address common priorities, and invest in solutions that can both help our organisations grow and use our collective strength to truly make a difference.
At Co-operators, our team makes great use of the numerous in-person events, webinars, and Knowledge Hub artifacts to enhance our own impact. We have benefited greatly from the experience of ICMIF members in jurisdictions that have implemented accounting changes and disclosure requirements ahead of Canada. In addition, we are continuously inspired by innovation driven by fellow members in other parts of the world.
Our collective ability to make a difference is clearly reflected through the ICMIF Foundation, with important work being done to support the most vulnerable in our communities. The work and projects it supports may seem distant to our day-to-day focus, but it’s in our benefit and true to the values of co-operative organisations to invest. After all, creating resilient communities means reaching every member, and so I encourage you to get involved where you can.
We are faced with both a challenge and an opportunity. Our industry, like no other, can positively impact our communities, align with the purposes of our organisations, and make a difference where it counts. Together, we will demonstrate how insurers should act.
I feel a sense of confidence in our movement’s ability to catalyse positive change in the face of the world’s most pressing challenges. The fact that organisations like the UNDRR, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Accounting for Sustainability (A4S) seek partnerships with our movement through ICMIF is a testament to the fact that our network of Purpose-Built Insurers has both the collective motivation and the collective capability to tackle these challenges.
I look forward to another year as your Chair, and I hope to see you at our Biennial Conference in Buenos Aires in November!
Watch a message from Rob to ICMIF members for the start of 2024 in the video below and hear how his organisation has benefited from its membership of the Federation and why he is looking forward to attending the Biennial Conference in November this year.
