BPI Environmental Risk Assessment

In 2010 to 2014, BPI Foundation, the Bank’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm, conducted the “Business Risk Assessment and the Management of Climate Change Impacts” 16-city study in partnership with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), intended to prepare select Philippine cities for escalating climate change effects. The initiative’s output was an assessment of the climate-environmental, socio-economic, and adaptive capacity vulnerabilities of 16 select cities, which enabled community-level interventions.

In 2019, BPI and WWF regrouped to update and expand its list of cities assessed to identify site-specific environmental and climate risk exposures as well as sustainable development financing opportunities.

Using the Hazard Hunter system of DOST-PHIVOLCS, BPI launched its Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) initiative to determine the risk exposure of employees, offices, and machines (ATMs / CAMs), as well as client assets and collaterals to natural hazards such as earthquakes, typhoons, flooding, and volcanic eruptions. Under the ERA initiative, BPI expanded its list of cities mapped for natural disasters to 1,647 by end-2020, from 16 cities in 2014.

Equipped with ERA results, BPI lending officers help clients determine their vulnerabilities to natural disasters and offer potential risk-mitigating measures such as structural, technological, and engineering interventions, as well as appropriate insurance coverage.

With ERA, BPI is able to protect both the clients and the Bank from possible business interruptions and losses caused by climate and environmental hazards and catastrophes. This is the first for a Philippine bank.

Access Hazard Hunter's website here.