12 August 2020
Simon Jones provides an update on the Resource & Environment Board as he steps down as Chair.
Our second fully virtual board meeting and yet another packed agenda reflecting the ongoing level of activity amongst the Board which continues to pick up momentum.
The Board is organised into six portfolios, with the Research portfolio falling under the deep dive spotlight during this meeting. Joe Kennedy provided a detailed update on the work of our Research & CPD subcommittee noting that we’ve recently added four volunteers to the committee, have a working party focused on Biodiversity and Natural Capital up and running, with two others in the pipeline. We also noted the completion of papers on climate scenario analysis and using TCFD reports, both of which were launched during recent webinars.
The update prompted a debate on how we can best use our research to influence policy makers, something that is likely to continue to exercise the Board over coming months as we strive to have our voices heard.
We also received short updates from various of our other portfolios, which included:
- Sustainable Development Goals (Lucy Saye and Jihan Dialosa) who are planning an interesting podcast series exploring the different goals and their relevance to actuaries;
- Education (John Bayliss and Patrick Cleary) who have had engagement with both the Lifelong Learning Board and others on how we can evolve our syllabus to take into account the requirements of the Green Finance Educational Charter;
- Communities (David Ford and Alasdair Mullins-Smith) who are currently working on a survey of the 400 Club.
One goal of the Board has been to invite guest speakers to its meetings and we were joined, on this occasion, by Oliver Bettis to address the work of the new Economics MIG. This added to an interesting earlier discussion on Intergenerational Fairness where a proposal to establish a new Working Party to explore this topic further was strongly endorsed by the Board.
A review of the Board’s work over the last year will follow but, in my last meeting as Chair, I would conclude by saying it has been an absolute pleasure to lead such a passionate group of people over the last 12 months. The progress we have made in this time is astounding.
Simon Jones
Further details on Resource & Environment practice area activities