PARIMA Resilience Week: PARIMA chairman Franck Baron calls for climate action

Speaking at PARIMA’s Resilience Week, the organisation’s founding chairman questioned whether organisations and governments had given climate change enough prominence.

He said the pandemic was “predictable and expected, and so is climate change”.

“Are we witnessing the same lack of risk management regarding climate change today that we witnessed regarding pandemics? Are our government and private organisations truly measuring the magnitude of the challenge?” he asked attendees of the virtual conference.

Baron called on corporations and national governments to work together on climate change.

“Everyone must take their share of responsibility in this situation; citizens, companies, governments and international organisations in the prevailing economic system,” he added.

Amid the global effort against Covid-19, Baron called on governments to place greater emphasis on risks such as air pollution, and “silent killers” such as obesity and diabetes.

Baron called on risk managers to act as a “central steering tool for sustainable corporate governance”.

“It has never been clearer; businesses are operating in a world where it’s not enough to talk the talk where the climate crisis is concerned. Failing to act holds grave legal, reputational, regulatory, and ultimately existential consequences.”

“The time to act is now,” he said. “Risk management can facilitate the communication about these risks and opportunities, and help to highlight the vital role that we all have to play to embed good ESG practices and manage the risk attached to climate change.”

“So faced with systemic risks such as climate change, the paradigm shift is absolutely necessary,” he added. “Companies must be encouraged to invest in resilience for risk management at the very heart of their business model,” he said.