Nick Spencer is a senior consultant and sustainability risk specialist in the Milliman Life and Financial Services practice based in London. He is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and past Chair of its Sustainability Board and a past Council Member. He has written extensively on the integration of climate risks into actuarial work as well as on natural capital, biodiversity and broadly on aspects of the climate transition.

Our sweeping discussion starts with risk, which, as an actuary, has been the backbone of Nick’s career – analyzing it, measuring it, mitigating it. We look at the challenge of sustainability through a risk lens, and ask whether carbon should remain at the forefront of the discussion or whether it is more critical now to expand the list of priorities.

Staying on the topic of risk we speak about standards, reporting and mitigation, and circle into adjacent areas such as the challenge of biodiversity loss, renewable agriculture and the hydrology cycle.

Naturally, some of these seem to be at times insurmountable challenges, and we assess the right mindset for staying in this industry long term.

Nick suggested the following resources - see fiftyfaceshub for more details.

Sustainability Accelerator - Chatham House

https://donellameadows.org/systems-thinking-resources/

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/final-report-the-economics-of-biodiversity-the-dasgupta-review

https://global-tipping-points.org/resources-gtp/

Planetary Solvency – Finding Our Balance with Nature and Planetary Solvency Dashboard ;

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