ESG Initiative News

Originally published on July 24, 2020 on EY Mary Cline, Jon Shames, and Courtney Rickert McCaffrey   The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world. People, industries and governments have had to adjust to the new reality, leaders prepared to manage the risks that emerge will gain a competitive edge for their…Read More

October 12, 2020 This blogpost originally appeared on Knowledge@Wharton on October 5, 2020. Read the full K@W article or listen to the podcast episode. For the poor, like Yamileth Centeno, problems compound when disaster strikes. The electrician from Lake Charles, Louisiana, lost her job in the pandemic and was living…Read More

October 8, 2020 Derek Nong Derek is an undergraduate in the Vagelos Integrated Program for Energy Research at the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in Electrical Engineering and Physics. In order to minimize wildfire risk, California’s electric utilities will sometimes de-energize lines in high risk conditions. Called Public Safety Power Shutoffs…Read More

October 1, 2020 Erin St. Peter Melting sea ice is opening up the potential for increased maritime traffic in the Arctic—presenting challenges for insurers and highlighting tensions between state interests and environmental concerns. Arctic sea ice is shrinking rapidly. The annual minimum size of Arctic sea ice has been declining…Read More

September 17, 2020 James Ballot,  Senior Advisor, Strategic Communications, Triple-I This post originally appeared on September 15th, 2020 on the Insurance Information Institute's blog. From Friday, September 11 to Sunday, September 13, the third annual the Hack-for-Resilience competition (“H4R”) was hosted by Wharton Risk Center and the Insurance Information Institute’s (“Triple-I”) Resilience Accelerator as part of the PennAppsXXI…Read More

September 15, 2020 Carolyn Kousky and Carlos Martin This blog post originally appeared as an Op-Ed in The Hill on August 31, 2020. Hurricane Laura made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in western Louisiana and eastern Texas Thursday morning, leaving yet-to-be counted damage and despair in its wake. As…Read More

September 11, 2020 Amanda Geiser, Josh Lewis and Deborah Small Josh Lewis was a 2019 Russell Ackoff Doctoral Student Fellow and received grant funding for this research prior to graduating. COVID-19 has disrupted nearly every aspect of daily life and captured the world’s attention. Governments, nonprofits, and individuals have directed…Read More

August 27, 2020 Howard Kunreuther and Erin St. Peter Recent wildfires still raging in California have been caused by what some experts deem an unprecedented volume and pattern of almost 300 lightning strikes in contrast to nearly 90% of U.S. wildfires that are caused by equipment sources (e.g., utility wires)…Read More

August 26, 2020 Reihane Boghrati Dr. Boghrati has been a post-doctoral researcher at the Wharton Risk Center for the past two years. Her research focuses on extracting psychological phenomena from text. To do this she uses advance machine learning and natural language processing techniques to study behavioral constructs. In a…Read More