Wednesday 02 April 2014 – Lloyd’s was honoured at this year’s City of London’s Sustainable City Awards for its “outstanding report” on business and insurance implications of food safety and security. (source: Lloyd’s of London)
Trevor Maynard, Lloyd’s head of exposure management and reinsurance, and his team took home the Farsight Award, which recognises the best individual piece of analysis by investment research institutions on environmental, social or governance issues.
Authored by the Emerging Risks team, Feast or Famine: Business and Insurance Implications of Food Safety and Security (May 2013) explores why food safety and security are important issues for businesses, as well as the insurance industry. It looks at how insurance can play a role in risk mitigation, management, innovation and investment in relation to food safety and food security by providing effective risk management advice and expertise, as well as risk transfer.
Charlotte Hornby, a previous Lloyd’s graduate in the Emerging Risks team and now Cargo and Specie Assistant Underwriter at Navigators, was one of the authors of the report. She believes food security will be one of the defining issues of the next 10+ years. “The insurance market has an opportunity to manage the risk and uncertainty surrounding food security. I am glad that this topic has captured attention, and delighted the report has been recognised by The City of London, ” she said.
Entries to the Farsight Award are drawn from contributors to The London Accord project, the world’s largest collaborative research programme on sustainable finance. Since its foundation in 2005 the London Accord has gathered more than 600 individual pieces of research donated by over 50 international institutions on topics ranging from climate change to childhood obesity.
According to Simon Mills, Head of Sustainable Development at the City of London Corporation, with nearly a hundred reports to choose from this year, the judges’ task was not an easy one, however, Lloyds report on global food security stood out from the crowd.
“This thoughtful, and at times alarming, analysis of the interconnectedness and fragility of global agriculture explores why food safety and security are important issues for businesses, as well as the insurance industry, ” said Mills. “In particular it looks at how insurance can play a role in risk management in relation to food safety and food security by providing effective advice and expertise. Our judges were impressed by the breadth and detail of this research, and felt that its easily accessible style made it an essential primer for anyone interested in this issue.”
Melissa Brown, one of the judges, said: “With Feast or Famine, the Lloyd’s team has produced a valuable introduction to how insurers assess food safety and security issues. The report identifies new areas of concern such as supply shocks and agro terrorism and provides a roadmap of possible responses by the insurance industry. This work should be valuable to all members of the financial services community – from equity analysts to risk managers.”
Trevor Maynard said the Lloyd’s team was delighted to win the award: “We believe food security is an important emerging risk which could affect the global economy in the future and we hope our work will help businesses think through its implications.”
You can watch a video of the 2014 Sustainable City Awards here.
