Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)

✨ This was a bit of a "pinch me" moment - walking into the Financial Times offices in London to discuss our latest research with Simoney Kyriakou on the Margin Notes Podcast. What started as an idea around the need to better connect environmental and social risks has grown into research that I’m incredibly proud of. Our conversation focused on why climate and social risks can no longer be treated in isolation - particularly in sectors like food systems, where climate shocks, inequality and supply chain vulnerabilities are deeply interconnected and increasingly financially material. I’m hugely grateful to Simoney for such a thoughtful discussion, and to all the brilliant colleagues, partners and contributors who helped shape the research: Dr Nina Seega Felicity Alvey Zoe Kalus 🎧 Listen to full podcast here: https://lnkd.in/eyBi85FW Moments like these are a reminder of why this work matters - and how important it is that we continue breaking down silos across finance, climate and social impact. Centre for Sustainable Finance (CISL) Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)

🎡London Climate Action Week 2026 is approaching - and we're pleased to be part of global event to mobilise whole-of-society climate action and market transformation. We’ll be convening leaders, partners and innovators across London through a series of events focused on turning ambition into action - from sustainable finance and insurability to clean electrification, AI, green skills and systems change. Alongside our own convenings, CISL experts will contribute to key discussions shaping the future of business, policy and markets during the week. Join us at London Climate Action Week to show what’s possible when coalitions come together to tackle shared challenges - bringing together world-leading expertise across sectors to drive real progress. Explore our events here👉https://lnkd.in/df_4bJHv If you’re attending, we’d be delighted to connect - let us know in the comments 👇 #LCAW2026 #LCAW #CISLLCAW Centre for Sustainable Finance (CISL) Corporate Leaders Groups Canopy (CISL) Lindsay Hooper James Cole Eliot Whittington Jie Zhou Viola Jardon Beverley Cornaby Viola A. Meyerweissflog Dr Nina Seega Felicity Alvey Gwyn Rhodes Elliot Cyriax Annisa Sekaringtias Ainslie MacLeod Adele Williams Ursula Woodburn Climate Action

New European #cleantech cluster ranking! Apparently #Cambridge's numbers are "hot AF" with two new unicorns this year alone (CuspAI and Nyobolt). There are 100s more early stage ventures queuing up to change the world and show up on these investment charts in the next few years. But we need to keep investing in the early stage pipeline now for them to show up at Series A and beyond. Watch this space! https://lnkd.in/e_y__52C Chris Gibbs Christine Martin Adele Williams Zoë Loughlin Sam Laakkonen Jie Zhou Viola Jardon Nicky Dee Agnieszka Iwasiewicz-Wabnig FRSA Jim Totty Paul Bailey Steve Raffe Gemma Cranston Kathryn Chapman Sam Goodall Sylvie Russell Nicolette Bartlett Nykki Rogers Chris Coleridge Kamiar Mohaddes Caroline Hyde FRSA Sarah Mackintosh Canopy (CISL) Innovate Cambridge Cambridge Enterprise

When insurance disappears, economies follow. The insurance protection gap, the difference between total economic losses from natural disasters and what is actually covered, is widening. And as climate change intensifies, this gap is becoming one of the most underappreciated threats to global financial stability. This isn't just a problem for vulnerable nations. The Climate Change Committee's fourth UK Climate Risk Assessment identifies access to insurance as one of eight priority areas for government action. When risks go uninsured, governments become the insurer of last resort, absorbing costs that were never budgeted for. As part of the Think7 process advising the French #G7 Presidency, with wonderful collaborators we've published a solutions paper on closing this gap. Our case rests on three fronts: 1. Fairer burden-sharing between public and private actors with clearer rules, stronger frameworks, and models like Flood Re showing what's possible when incentives are properly aligned. 2. Unlocking insurability in emerging economies, where the gap is most acute. Parametric insurance holds real promise, but only with common standards and safeguards. Pre-arranged financing mechanisms need to scale, and fast. 3. Shared data and risk intelligence, the least glamorous but most foundational fix. Fragmented data means risk cannot be properly priced or managed. A shared, open-access database of catastrophe risk indicators would be a transformative public good. The tools exist. The knowledge exists. What's needed now is coordination and political will, because in a world of accelerating climate risk, the cost of inaction dwarfs the cost of getting this right. The G7 should seize this moment. Centre for Sustainable Finance (CISL) Felicity Alvey Kate Levick Salvatore Serravalle, Faith Hammond, Paul Vigneron, Camille Diliberto, Olivier Lopez, Adèle Tanguy, Jorge Gastelumendi, Stuart Cox, Daphné M., Anbumozhi Venkatachalam, Maud ABDELLI and Regula Hess Full piece in Forbes: https://lnkd.in/ePPnwR_Y

A few further thoughts on the excellent Climate Change Committee 'Well adapted UK' report. I think it really clearly sets out some core things that we all need to understand. For me these are: ▶️ Climate change is happening now. It is already making us poorer, less healthy and less safe. ▶️ The future is not the same as the past. We have locked in a level of future warming that cannot be avoided. We need to adapt to cope with that. ▶️ We can do it! There are a series of actions that we can all take to make life more comfortable, to head off risks and impacts. We should do so! We really need to get on with this as a priority. ▶️ But we can't adapt to everything. Some of the impacts we don't understand yet - we don't know how risks will interact and cascade through the system. We don't know what society's risk appetite Some of the warming impacts will just change things. We need to have an open discussion about this - it can't be allowed to sneak up on people. We also need to talk about where society's appetite for risk is. The UK, alongside many other industrialised countries, has not the best recent history when it comes to doing what's necessary to manage future risks. This report could not be a clearer warning not to do this with climate impacts or more helpful to-do list of how to prepare. Let's hope it's heeded. https://lnkd.in/eatydjSG

The Climate Change Committee’s latest report is one of their most important. 'Well-Adapted UK' documents the immediate pressures and likely future impacts that rising climate risks pose to the UK. It sets out that adaptation efforts are not currently doing enough to reduce climate risk and prepare the UK for life in a world of more extreme weather, much of which is locked in. Crucially, the report goes beyond diagnosis to prescription, and clearly identifies priority areas for action such as cooling, flood protection and water management; focusing on solutions that are ready to be implemented now. It serves as a blueprint for action by governments, businesses and households, as well as a wake-up call to the risks of inaction. The private sector is already dealing with climate risks and impacts but increasingly they are coming up against the limits of what they can achieve individually and the need for coordination, leadership and investment from government. At Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) we're working with leaders who get this to unlock and support more action. Our Corporate Leaders Groups have brought forward messages from businesses looking for more detail for businesses on what good climate adaptation looks like – a need which is recognised and responded to by this new report. Our Centre for Sustainable Finance (CISL) is working with banks and insurers to set out the challenges of declining insurability and the impacts of climate on banking credit risk, providing tools to help map and address these challenges. Private business and finance needs and is ready to work with clear government leadership increasing UK resilience. Creating an economy and society resilient to the effects of climate change will bring a range of environmental, social and economic benefits. As the CCC says, we do not have time to be delayed by volatility and complexity of the current moment. Business, finance and government need to work together to act now.

Today the European Commission has issued a series of measures to address the soaring cost of fertiliser, due to the global shortage of its key ingredients caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This may help short term but we need to think much more deeply about risks as profound as food system insecurity. Maybe the war in Iran could be a tipping point to a disruption to the food system that is comparable to the energy transition already underway. Will it wake governments up to the risks? Last year I wrote a piece for the Financial Times 👉 "Renewable Food is on the Horizon" in which I argued that while it's earlier in the process the basic drivers in food are the same as they were in energy. We have an urgent and unarguable social and ecological need and we have the technologies available that not only fix the problem but are just better in all ways - cheaper, cleaner and less wasteful. I'm not saying a transition to "Renewable Food" is inevitable. But it's a choice we have the opportunity to make so we aren’t so reliant on a waterway in Iran to grow our food.  You can read the full paper from Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) linked below. Lindsay Hooper James Cole Pilita Clark Philippa Nuttall https://lnkd.in/giccFqKs