The casualties of the climate crisis could include financial stability, the global economy, and the value of investments. As governments catch up to the realities of climate change and the policy response continues to gather pace, global markets need transparency into the financial impacts of climate change on companies.

‌The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) released their recommendations in 2017 to improve and increase reporting of climate-related financial information. Today, 2,000+ organizations support TCFD, including 110+ regulators and government entities across 78 countries.

Why read this guide?

It outlines the benefits of climate reporting to firms such as yours, and explains how companies and regulators are implementing the TCFD recommendations.

Firms implementing the recommendations are able to:‌

• Efficiently identify climate-related opportunities and risks

• Proactively address investors' demands for climate-related information in a framework that investors are increasingly asking for

• More effectively meet current requirements to report material information in financial filings

• Enhance risk management and strategic planning, through better understanding of climate risk

‌Bloomberg has created this guide to help you better understand the benefits of implementing the TCFD recommendations.

"The COVID virus has been a case of biology confronting and really shaking the complacency of day-to-day politics with a physical reality of sickness and death on a scale we haven't seen for a very long time," Turnbull told the Policy Exchange audience. "And so the question really is: why do so many people in government and so many people in politics - particularly in the Anglo sphere - not take the scientific evidence on climate change just as seriously?

And below a link to The Age article covering the interview.

Coronavirus-driven supply chain disruptions are having cash flow implications for the US protein sector due to increased operating costs and less efficient plants, Fitch Ratings says.

At the recent G20 Finance Ministers meeting in Riyadh, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire — a staunch advocate of deepening economic integration — posed a question which just a few years ago would have seemed inconceivable:

‘Do we want to still depend at the level of 90 per cent or 95 per cent on the supply chain of China for the automobile industry, for the drug industry, for the aeronautical industry or do we draw the consequences of that situation to build new factories, new productions, and to be more independent and sovereign?

That’s not protectionism — that’s just the necessity of being sovereign and independent from an industrial point of view’

As Australia was swept by panic buying and medical shortages this year, the scenes were eerily familiar for one of the country's most senior military planners.

In a secret meeting only a year earlier, the Defence Department's director of preparedness Cheryl Durrant and a group of Australian industry leaders had predicted a strikingly similar scenario.

"We predicted the unpredictable," says Ms Durrant, who left the department in January.

 AWS has published a guide to assist their clients understand the basic concepts of security incident response within their AWS environment. It presents an overview of the fundamentals of responding to security incidents within a customer’s AWS cloud environment, including an overview of cloud security and incident response concepts, identifies cloud capabilities, services, and mechanisms that are available to customers for responding to security issues.  

You can download the white paper here, or click on the link below to view all AWS white papers.

The latest report on risks and vulnerabilities by the Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) shows that the securities, banking and insurance sectors in the European Union (EU) face multiple risks. And, although this report is focussed on the EU, a number of risks and vulnerabilities also apply to the Australian market. 

The latest ESA report outlines the following risks as potential sources of instability:

• Uncertainties around the terms of the UK's withdrawal from the EU; 
• Cyber attacks; and
• Sudden repricing of risk premia as witnessed by the recent spike in volatility and associated market corrections.

The ESA report also raises awareness for risks related to climate change and the transition to a lower-carbon economy.

Some of the key points from the report are:

Brexit: the ESAs recommend that EU financial institutions and their counterparties, as well as investors and retail consumers, consider timely mitigation actions to prepare for the UK's withdrawal from the EU – including possible relocations and actions to address contract continuity risks;

Cyber security: the ESAs encourage financial institutions to improve fragile IT systems, and explore inherent risks to information security, connectivity and outsourcing. To support this, the ESAs will continue addressing cyber risks for securities, banking and insurance markets and monitor firms' use of cloud computing and potential build-up of cyber risks; and 

Climate change: the ESAs recommend that financial institutions consider sustainability risk in their governance and risk management frameworks; should develop responsible, sustainable financial products; and supervisors should enhance their analysis of potential risks related to climate change for the financial sector and financial stability.

Download the report

"Energy companies have accepted the reality that digital threats can have tangible consequences. This perception is perhaps heightened by recent attacks that were specifically designed to affect physical operations and have proven capable of doing so." 

Following recent negative headlines for social media, and Facebook in particular, Databarracks’ Peter Groucutt is warning organizations not to call time on their accounts. Social media is not just for promotion; during a crisis it is often your most effective communications medium.

“The best examples of crisis management comms on social media show that proactive engagement can generate goodwill and garner more patience from the public to rectify a situation. There are some simple steps an organization can take to prepare for social media communications during an incident. Read more

Researchers have just unveiled a new robotic “insect” that can not only fly, but perch on a variety of surfaces, including ceilings. Using switchable electrostatic adhesion, the bio-inspired device can land on everything from glass to wood to a leaf while searching for hazardous chemicals, which is its purpose if not what’s most notable about it.

BCI, Jim Preen | May 18

Why do businesses avoid crucial planning? The reasons aren’t hard to find. Apart from total disaster junkies no one particularly likes to think about crises and for most SMEs just surviving is a daily struggle. Keeping all the plates spinning in the air requires 100% attention, who is going to slice out even 1% just to consider a bunch of scary ‘what if’ scenarios?