Howden launches Climate Risk and Resilience capability

International insurance group, Howden, today announces the launch of a new Climate Risk and Resilience division.

Led by Charlie Langdale, the team will focus on risk transfer products that help to accelerate and de-risk the move towards a low carbon economy, and to mitigate the results of climate change.

The team will bring together ideas and insight from across the Group and incubate them to create solutions that address the problems of tomorrow, at scale.

Charlie Langdale, Head of Climate Risk and Resilience at Howden, explains: “We’re helping to remove barriers to financing the projects that will help us move towards a low-carbon economy, whilst also creating scalable, sustainable markets for funding disaster response by unlocking private capital for social good.

We’re driving capital to where it otherwise wouldn’t go and, in doing so, tackling climate risk from both a reduction and recovery angle.”

So far this year, Howden has collaborated with the Danish Red Cross, and others, on the first ever volcano catastrophe bond; developed a carbon offset invalidation insurance for the California Cap and Trade scheme; and is helping to launch the world’s first fully sustainable insurer, Parhelion.

David Howden, CEO of Howden Group, comments: “I don’t know that there has ever been a more important moment for the insurance industry to prove its power as an enabler for change. The move to a low-carbon economy simply cannot happen without insurance; with the launch of this team, we’re investing in the people and resources to help drive that change.

We’re bringing together the best minds from within our business, and experts from outside the industry, to help us identify and develop the solutions that will have genuine impact in helping our clients in the transition to a more sustainable world.”