Bringing Climate Risk Assessments In-House with GIS

Executives today are taking the threat of climate change to business continuity more seriously than ever. In a 2022 Bloomberg survey, 85 percent of financial firms said they’ve started making climate risk assessments.

However, no two businesses face the same exposure to climate risks. The location and nature of operations shape a firm’s unique vulnerabilities to environmental disruption. That has given rise to a cottage industry of consultants who tailor climate impact analysis to individual companies, but whose services can come at a steep cost.

For many businesses, a more direct solution can be found in software they already use: geographic information system (GIS) technology. Bouwinvest, a major real estate investment firm based in the Netherlands, is among the companies using existing GIS capabilities to incorporate climate risk analysis into its investment strategy.

“I think a lot of our peers don’t have the in-house knowledge of the climate maps,” says Robert Wagenaar, Bouwinvest’s head of portfolio operations and transactions. “We find it really important to have the in-house knowledge about how it works, and to be able to make our own analysis.”

Please read the full interview with Robert Wagenaar and Rutger de Koning on the website of WhereNext.