Phase 1 Topic

Zurich has created the following case study for highly motivated student teams, who want to compete for proceeding to Phase 2 of the Zurich Enterprise Challenge. Zurich will recognize and reward teams based on business relevance, applicability and creativity of the team’s solution. Other selection criteria are the quality of layout and design of the submission, and presentation skills.

Teams can submit their solution until Sunday, 26 June 2022 at 23:59 in the last time zone (UTC-12).

Climate Change Risk Analysis

The current climate change debate confronts senior decision-makers in multinational organizations all over the world with the challenge to understand how their business and risk environment will and must adjust in response to climate change. Even in countries, which are currently less directly impacted by climate change, organizations that fail to implement adequate climate change mitigation strategies might face adverse consequences for their supply chain, operations, workforce or reputation.

Multinational organizations need to implement adequate mitigation actions in order to manage their operations and risk landscape in countries directly and indirectly impacted by climate change. At the same time, they need to conduct strategic planning in order to explore innovative ways of managing associated risk exposures in the long-term.

1. Describe potential short- and long-term risks and consequences of climate change for multinational organizations. Thereby, first identify sources of relevant quantitative and qualitative data and information, which decision-makers could use in order to measure climate change specific risks.
2. Secondly, describe how such data and information could be used as part of a company’s risk and strategy management in order to support both the definition of short-term climate change response actions and the formulation of innovative strategies for managing climate change risks in the long-term.
3. Finally, assess how a company’s business model and geographical footprint might affect the way by which it is impacted by climate change.