In April, the Climate Risk and Sustainability course will be one year old. During its first year, we welcomed 155 participants and awarded 148 certificates. Members from more than 19 countries came together at the seminars to discuss and share what they had learnt.
Before the course was launched, a team of volunteer members worked with the IFoA for more than a year to devise, curate and create the content for the nine modules.
From the moment we opened the course for bookings, we saw huge interest from members and, after the first one, we were quickly able to double the cohort size to meet the demand.
Participant Sian Eltman told us that the key takeaways for her were “just how serious and imminent an issue combatting climate change is, and how actuaries can play a key role in encouraging and assisting our clients, members, policyholders, regulated entities and related stakeholders in a smooth transition to a net-zero world.”
The opportunity for members to learn in diverse groups is also a benefit of this online course; Sian said that it opened her eyes to “people living in areas that are already experiencing the consequences of climate change and how they are working to combat the issue”.
The course has appealed to a wide range of members and is a unique opportunity to come together and think about the impact of climate change.
The three course dates that we ran last year have given us great insight into what members want from taking part in it, and it is pleasing to see that more than 94% of participants would go on to recommend it to colleagues.
Given the pace of change in the climate change arena, our team of volunteers came together to review and refresh the materials for the coming year, and take into account comments we’d received from the first three courses.
Their insights were that there is a balance to be struck between information overload and enabling members to grow their knowledge, apply the lessons to the workplace and feel encouraged to undertake further learning, as the subject is complex and so vast.
For this year, we will continue to build on the success of the course. The first of our 2023 courses began in January, with more to follow in April, July and October. For information, including how to book, visit: bit.ly/Climate_risk_sust
The Climate Risk and Sustainability course is one way in which the IFoA is supporting its goal in making climate-related risk understood and generally considered by members – in the same way that we understand and consider other major life risks, such as interest rates and mortality.
