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This Climate Resilience Group Has Big Ambitions

The Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance has a new name and expanded mandate to tackle a broad array of climate shocks

Author

Louie Woodall
September 19, 2024

AI-generated via DALL-E

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TL;DR

  • Earlier this month, the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance announced it was transitioning into the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance

  • It’s more than a name change. The partnership — made up of NGOs, humanitarian organizations, and research outfits — is expanding its mandate to encompass more climate risks and embrace new challenges

  • Work on four overarching themes will absorb the Alliance’s time and energy over the next decade, during which time it hopes to positively affect the lives of 70 million people

  • The transformation does not rid the Alliance of perennial issues, however, around monitoring its impact and engaging with adaptation-skeptic stakeholders

Is it a rebrand, a reboot, or a remake? When the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance said it was “evolving” into the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance (ZCRA) earlier this month, an uninformed observer may be forgiven for thinking this was a new coat of paint glossed over an aging philanthropic initiative.

That’s absolutely not the case. In a conversation with Climate Proof,  GrĂ©gory Renand, head of the Z Zurich Foundation — the philanthropic arm of the Zurich Insurance Group and convener of the Alliance — made clear that the name change heralds a major shift in the group’s focus.

“One of the key questions we asked ourselves was: how do we stay accurate with the materialization of climate change? Is flood the only answer? No, because we were also seeing a lot of things coming from other hazards: heat waves, wildfires, storms. So [we asked ourselves] how do we adapt our framework so that we can include more perils? Then we can select which type of perils is the most relevant in each of the geographic areas we want to focus on,” explains Renand.

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