News Brief

U.N. Seeks to Create Disaster-Resilient Economies with R!SE

Helping corporations bolster their defenses against the economic effects of natural disasters is the focus of the new initiative.

Image: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction
After a record-breaking decade of economic losses due to natural disasters, the United Nations has launched an initiative to improve corporations’ disaster-risk-management strategies and investment planning.

The R!SE initiative aims to help corporations improve approaches to risk management and to create voluntary industry standards that would influence and strengthen the demand for risk-sensitive products. These investments—ranging from property, tourist destinations, or agricultural products—either are not highly prone to a disaster or have high adaptive capacity (see Property Giant Ties Cities’ Investment Prospects to Resilience). Disaster-related risks for corporations range from damaged reputations to disruptions in business to increased material costs along the supply chain. The overall objective of the R!SE initiative is to make all investments risk-sensitive, creating risk-resilient economies across the globe.

The U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) is collaborating with the Economist Intelligence Unit, Florida International University, AECOM and other global players on the initiative in an effort to facilitate a broad approach involving businesses, investors, insurance companies, nonprofits, educational establishments, and government organizations. UNISDR claims it is already working with 14 of the world's largest corporations, including Arup, ABB, and Shapoorhi Pallonji.

For more information:

PreventionWeb

preventionweb.net

Published August 3, 2014

(2014, August 3). U.N. Seeks to Create Disaster-Resilient Economies with R!SE. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/newsbrief/un-seeks-create-disaster-resilient-economies-rse

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