Principal speaker
Jason West
APCSE Open Lecture: The Long Hedge - Preserving Organisational Value through Climate Change Adaptation, with Dr Jason West, Griffith Business School.
In the context of climate change, it is clear that corporate 'mitigation' efforts to limit greenhouse gases alone will not be sufficient to protect against future environmental impacts. For most companies intent on preserving their operating efficiency and value, adaptation - the process of changing behavior in response to actual or expected climate change impacts - is emerging as a critical partner to mitigation efforts aimed at reducing the accumulation of greenhouse gases.
The recent growth in the probability and expected costs associated with the risk of climate change emphasises the importance of developing and deploying new technology, and redesigning infrastructure and other assets, that will enable companies to respond to such change without excessive reductions in profitability. The nature and extent of adaptation in each situation will depend on the costs involved compared with the benefits of adopting different adaptation strategies to achieve a target level of resilience. Companies that choose to adapt and do so effectively will benefit from an improvement in their net risk-return profile while those that do not adapt choose not to because the value of the expected reduction in risk is not expected to offset the effect of the reduction in returns.
The benefits of adaptation are more likely to appear, not in the form of higher returns, but in a significant reduction in earnings volatility. Ultimately this will generate higher risk-adjusted returns for adaptive organisations. This presentation will discuss how this is possible using a range of case studies from global industries.
Dr Jason West is an Associate Professor in Finance at Griffith University. Jason has held senior industry appointments with BHP Billiton, Commonwealth Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank and has worked extensively throughout Australia, Europe and Asia. Jason’s research has developed new approaches to the modelling of risk and the pricing of financial instruments in the energy sector as well as devising new approaches to understanding the dynamics of resource economics. He has also developed advanced methods for commodity price modelling, insurance derivatives and the funding of infrastructure projects. He has published more than 40 articles in academic journals and books.