Canadian ICMIF member Wawanesa Insurance has announced a new partnership with the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR), a national not-for-profit focused on helping Canadian property owners, businesses and communities prepare for and adapt to the impacts of severe weather events that are being exacerbated by a warming climate.
The partnership involves the opening of a new ICLR Climate Resilience Centre in Winnipeg in the coming months. With this partnership agreement, Wawanesa says it will sponsor the ICLR by providing office space and operating funds to open a new centre on the main floor of Wawanesa’s former Canadian office.
“Through this partnership, Wawanesa will play a useful role in helping Canadians adapt to the increasing effects and risks of climate change,” said Graham Haigh, Wawanesa’s SVP & Chief Operations Officer, West. “ICLR is a leader in providing property owners, businesses, insurers, governments and academic institutions with high-quality information on reducing the risk of extreme weather on Canadian homes, businesses and communities. With this new Climate Resilience Centre in Winnipeg, which will serve all of Canada, ICLR will reach even more stakeholders and help us all better prepare for the extreme weather that is here now and which will become more extreme in the years ahead.”
“ICLR is thrilled to partner with Wawanesa Insurance on this groundbreaking initiative. Talking to people and showing them a picture or telling them about resilience to severe weather can be too abstract and almost meaningless. Actually showing them how resilience features work, allowing people to push a button or turn a dial, and fostering a dialogue brings life to the science of resilience and helps to further understanding of what needs to be done to protect Canadians against severe weather,” says Paul Kovacs, Executive Director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction.
About the new ICLR Climate Resilience Centre
The Centre will serve as a destination for various stakeholders, such as insurers, reinsurers, brokers, home builders, building code officials and others to come together and learn about best practices and the issues involved in becoming more climate resilient. This includes:
- Developing programming with national reach, distributing information to various stakeholders that is relevant to climate risks across the country.
- Free attendance, allowing groups to book the premises for education sessions, host events and to collaborate in person.
- Multimedia and other hands-on displays highlighting practical strategies for property loss mitigation developed by ICLR and sponsored by Wawanesa. The displays will be able to travel to communities for education events to address hazards such as basement flooding/sewer backup, wildfire, overland flooding, extreme wind, and hail.
- A dedicated space sponsored by Wawanesa that will encourage attendees to come together to share knowledge and learn.
ICMIF Sustainability Forum
ICMIF members wanting to advance their sustainability journey should consider joining the ICMIF Sustainability Forum. These are regular virtual forums for sustainability leaders at member companies on the topics of sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns, hosted by ICMIF.
These roundtables include case study presentations from ICMIF’s global network of members who will share details of their sustainability/ESG journey and best-practice in terms of embedding sustainability into their business strategies to create value across their organisations.
For more information or to register to join the next session, please contact Liam Carter, SVP Sustainability, ICMIF. Alternatively, please click here for more info and future dates.
