FERMA identifies top risks

BRUSSELS, Belgium—Risk managers see the breakdown of critical information infrastructure, crime and corruption, liability regimes, terrorism and catastrophic floods as the top significant global risks, according to an informal survey conducted by the Federation of European Risk Management Associations in Brussels./p>A total of 39 European risk managers and other professionals from 12 national associations responded to the questions about core global risks. The managers were asked to list the significant risks to their businesses out of selected risks originally highlighted by the World Economic Forum in its Global Risks Report 2007, a FERMA spokeswoman said.

According to the survey, the second most important group of core risks is energy price and supply shocks, catastrophic windstorm and earthquake, and pandemics. A third group of risks, named in less than half the responses, covers climate change, war, loss of freshwater services and nanotechnology.

Noting that only 17 of the managers said climate change is a significant risk for their organization, Franck Baron, a FERMA board member and director of global insurance and risk management at Geneva-based Firmenich S.A., said: "It is not that risk managers are not concerned about climate change, but we do not yet know how it will affect individual companies operationally, and this is the province of the risk manager."

Mr. Baron is also chairman of the 2007 FERMA Risk Forum, which will take place in Geneva from 30 September to 4 October.