The workshop “Sustainable development risk trends” was in the first set of workshops, in the afternoon October 5th. It was the result of coordinated work by Czech (ASPAR) and Russian (RUSRISK) Risk Management Associations. The moderator of the workshop was Mr.Gert Cruywagen, a well-known risk manager from South Africa Republic.

Four speakers presented there view on the sustainable development in world-wide perspective and in national aspects.

Mr.Cliff Warman, Marsh, UK, spoke about “Managing Risks in Delivering on Sustainability”. The main point of his presentation was a business approach to corporate sustainability that creats long-term shareholders value from economic, environment and social developments. Sustainability icludes several issues:

• Environment
• Commerciality
• Shareholders expectations
• Corporate responsibility

Mr. Warman dug into the environmental landscap, which changes due to the regulatory regime, public perception and shareholders’ wish to transperency. The size of enviromental risk could be global, chronic and uncertain, so the company should work out there own strategy for managing it. As an example, the speaker told about climate change risks leading to strategic, physical, financial, reputational and regulatory risks. So the triple bottom line of strategic enviromental risk management consists of technical, legal and financial aspects.

The second speaker was Mr.Andrey Elohkhin, the head of insurance department in Lukoil Ltd., one of the biggest Russian oil companies. He spoke about trends in Russian risk management and made a wide comparisson between an influence of the economic crisis on risk management in Russia and worldwide. The most surprising were three facts:

• the biggest Russian companies cut there costs on Risk management up to 25% in average, comparing to 1% in Fortune 1000;
• almost all companies from Fortune 1000 use external and internal risk management, whereas Russian companies use only internal risk management;
• most russian companies don’t use captives.  

The third presentation was a case study about Plzeтský Prazdroj, part of SABMiller plc. Mr. Petr Holecek gave a background of the mother company, which is the world’s second largest international brewing company, which operates in more than 60 countries of the world, handles more than 200 brands.  Then he discribed the strategic, annual and operational goals set by the company. Coming from the goals, the risks of different levels were identified and prioritisation was made. So the company know how to react to expected crises and smooth its possible effect.

The last presentation was on the topic of Sustainable Development: Long-term, future risks, made by Tony Cabot, Director of Global Programs and Product Development Manager for CEA

XL Insurance. He presented a survey where the connection between sustainable stratgy and reinsurance was tested. The main question of the survey was whether underwriting that routinely takes into account ESG/Emerging Risk factors correlates to superior underwriting performance and enhanced long-term company value. The results of the research will be announced at 22-23 October 2009, Cape Town, South Africa.

There were more than 70 participants at the workshop. At the end some practical and hot questions were asked. One of the questions was about launching sustainable development strategy in the brewery. It was shown that it was coursed by the flood in Czech Republic. Another question was about the results of the survey. Unfortunately, the speaker discribed very briefly difference in correlation in many scenarios. So everybody has to wait till the official results will be announced. 

About the Forum

The Forum was a long one for me as there were two parts - pre conference course and the main conference. So five days of active networking and studying brought me much impression.

During the first two days I participated in pre conference course. The main objective of the course was to give us basic knowledge of risk management. It was started by Edouard THYS, director of Education, FERMA, Belgium. He was a person who coordinated the whole student program. After him there was a presentation by Roger AMHOF, Ernst & Young, Zurich, Switzerland. He talked about trends and challenges in risk management and the ways how to sell the whole concept of risk management to CEOs’. From my point of view, it was the best presentation during the pre course, due to aboundance of practical examples, interaction with us and his presentation skills. The presentation by Marie-Gemma DEQUAE, former President of FERMA, Belgium, was coming out of the previous one, as she talked about treatment of internal and external factors within the risk management consept.

On the next day there were three presentations by Chris CHARMAN, Senior Executive Business Development, HSBC Insurance Management, UK, Steve FOWLER, CEO, IRM London, UK, Jean-Paul LOUISOT, Senior Director of Knowledge Resources, American Institute for CPCU, Insurance Institute of America, USA.

During the course I learned some practical information so I was happy that we had young industrial people as speakers. Another improtant thing was networking. There were 10 of us from different countries and 4 Czech students. Edouard Thys invited us to a get-together party in a local bar where we talked a lot, tasted special food and beer.

The main Forum started from the plenary session opened by the new FERMA president, Mr.Peter den Dekker. During the next two and a half days I visited many workshops. Many of them were about insurance and brokers business. I would prefer to have more sessions about risk management itself, like a workshop “Project risk management – from the tender phase to successful execution: a practical case study”. On the other side, I saw a trend that risk management could be started from insurance as it’s easier to sell.

I enjoyed a lot the speakers and the panel discussions, because many daily questions were fairely discussed.

Overall, I excpected that the educational level of the workshops would be higher. These could be for two reasons – my academic background and shift of the forum to networking, rather than increasing knowledge.

The main interesting and disastrous thing for me was networking. I met many high-skilled people from different companies but many of them were a bit arrogant to students. Anyway, it was a great experience to meet them and to talk with them. Even more I trained my presentation skills a lot as I had to introduce myself in a few words.

I would like to say about exciting places for parties – there were many historical and beautifaul places in Prague thoroughly selected. I would never visite all these palaces and hotels if there was no forum.

I would like to thank Edouard THYS very much, because he made a lot for us during the program.