We recently held the first round of the SERI Advisory Group meetings (see more information on our advisory groups here), and our Steering Group has met to provide guidance on our programme of work. 

Starting from the concept of a Climate-Ready Building Passport, and running from April to June, these groups are exploring issues related to two of our core work streams: 

  1. Commercialisation and User Needs – focussing on the development of an insurance specific use case which could be enabled with a shared data infrastructure and user needs relating to data use & requirements as well as articulating the commercialisation opportunities for having an open standard for data sharing within the insurance sector.
  2. Systems and Standards – focussing on the development of the high-level operational and technical guidance for a governance framework that allows data sharing and recommendations for principles and practices to enable a data sharing standard.
Alternatively, get in touch at send us an email at seri@icebreakerone.org

What did we discuss in these Advisory Group meetings?

We wanted to ensure everyone present had a shared understanding of the core concept of our work and so as well as highlighting SERI’s mission, vision and values, we discussed key concepts such as:

  • Climate-ready and net-zero
  • Shared data and what is a shared data infrastructure
  • What a governance framework is and what we mean by a data sharing ecosystem (using Open Banking and Open Energy as examples) 
  • Climate-ready insurance products and incentives for insurers, industry and client behaviours toward climate-positive action 
  • The lines of business in insurance which climate-change impacts and the benefits of enabling better data sharing in the insurance industry


Commercialisation & User Needs Advisory Group Discussion & Next Steps

Read a more detailed summary and see the presentation.

Topics discussed include:

  • Retrofitting of existing buildings plays an important role in achieving net-zero in the built environment. What role can insurance play here to promote the retrofitting process? Can data sharing by insurers bring incentives through the renewal process, and where can data sharing improve the efficiency of the renewal process? 
  • How Net-Zero can behaviours be incentivised through new underwriting models, by better understanding the link between assets and sustainability risk?
  • Can mandatory TCFD reporting and ESG data be translated into sustainable risks for insurance underwriting? And how?
  • That increased data sharing through a data sharing governance framework has potential to bring innovation and operational efficiency to the insurance industry
  • New regulation related to data sharing in the insurance industry.

Next steps

  • Identify a small number of use cases to narrow our focus
  • Confirm hypotheses we are developing to share at the second Advisory Group meeting

Systems & Standards Advisory Group Discussion & Next Steps

Read a more detailed summary and see the presentation.

Topics discussed include:

  • Advantages of a Climate-Ready Building Passport (C-RBP) as a data tool for insurers, risk model vendors and other wider stakeholders 
  • The need to work on a specific use case to map the existing standards associated with buildings / the built environment to understand the stakeholders & data needs
  • Challenges around finding and linking climate data that can be used within the insurance sector to enable climate-ready insurance innovation
  • Need to incorporate and link between asset management climate data, ESG data and other aspects of the data landscape with reporting and disclosure data for insurance purposes 
  • Concerns and considerations for an iterative framework to prevent “gaming the system” as well as how structures such as Flood Re can account for insurance accessibility problems with, for example, “high risk” insurance exclusion zones

Next steps

  • Explore the climate-ready building passport ecosystem in more detail
  • Compare the Open Banking & Open Energy technical framework & use cases to explore what is relevant and transferable to SERI

Join Us!

We would love to hear from you. 

If you think your work is directly involved in either Advisory Group, and you’d like to share your thoughts, please either add your comments to our meeting summary document, or get in touch on seri@icebreakerone.org.