Continuous maintenance and the future – Foundations and technological challenges

High value and long life products require continuous maintenance throughout their life cycle to achieve required performance with optimum through-life cost. This paper presents foundations and technologies required to offer the maintenance service. Component and system level degradation science, assessment and modelling along with life cycle ‘big data’ analytics are the two most important knowledge and skill base required for the continuous maintenance. Advanced computing and visualisation technologies will improve efficiency of the maintenance and reduce through-life cost of the product. Future of continuous maintenance within the Industry 4.0 context also identifies the role of IoT, standards and cyber security

What Gets Measured Gets Financed: Climate finance funding flows and opportunities

Climate change poses a singular threat to humanity, and to The Rockefeller Foundation's 109-year mission of promoting its well-being throughout the world. To meet our mission today, we must directly confront climate change.One of the biggest obstacles to achieving net zero emissions globally by 2050 is the lack of financing from public and private sources for climate change mitigation and adaptation. This climate financing gap is made more acute by the use of inconsistent definitions, methodologies, and disclosures. Without standardized taxonomies, it can be difficult — if not impossible — for catalytic investors to trace financing flows and pinpoint gaps they can meaningfully target their dollars to.This report provides industry practitioners with a comprehensive view of how climate finance needs are evolving relative to flows and identifies where the most critical gaps in climate finance data reporting are, and where the need for taxonomic standards is most urgent.The report also provides guidance for how the finance gap can be overcome and recommends that all key actors in the climate finance ecosystem play bigger, more active roles. Governments will need to trace climate finance needs, flows, and outcomes for necessary structural interventions such as tax incentives and subsidies. Corporations need to disaggregate climate finance initiatives rather than rolling costs and allocations under business operations in order for investments and performance to be accurately assessed. And market-return-seeking investors need to make the end use of their proceeds more transparent, so that others in the climate finance arena can better discern the gaps and needs that remain

Risk-mitigation techniques: from (re-)insurance to alternative risk transfer

Insurance risks knowledge is becoming essential for both financial stability and social security purposes, moreover in a country with a very low insurance education like Italy. In insurance industry, Solvency II requirements introduced new issues for actuarial risk management in non-life insurance, challenging the market to have a consciousness of its own risk profile, and also investigating the sensitivity of the solvency ratio depending on the insurance risks and technical results on either a short-term and medium-term perspective. For this aim, in the present thesis, firstly a partial internal model for underwriting risk is developed for multi-line non-life insurers. Specifically, the risk-mitigation and profitability impacts of traditional reinsurance in the underwriting risk model are introduced, and a global framework for a feasible application of this model consistent with a medium-term analysis is provided. Reinsurance have to be considered in the assessment of Non-Life insurers risk profile, with particular regard to the Solvency II Underwriting Risk because of its impact on business and risk strategy. Risk mitigation techniques appear as a key driver of Non-Life insurance business as they can change risk profile over either the short-term or medium-term perspective. They impact the technical result of the year in such a way that it is important to assess how reinsurance strategies decrease the volatility, reducing the capital requirements, but, on the other hand, they also change the mean of distributions in different ways according to the price for risk requested by reinsurers. At the same time, risk mitigation also influences Non-Life insurance management actions as it can improve business strategy and capital allocation (also in potential capital recovery plans). Furthermore, the analysis a medium-term capital requirement would ask insurers to have more capital than in a one-year time horizon, and in this framework risk mitigation effects linked to reinsurance strategies must be assessed on either risk/return perspective trade-off. On the other hand, (re)insurance can play an active role in mitigating physical risks, and in particular natural catastrophe risks. In this context, as well as in natural disasters, Alternative Risk Transfer (ART) is becoming a new significant actuarial and capital management tool for insurers and, potentially, for government measures in recovery actions of economic and social losses in case of natural disasters. Catastrophe Bonds are insurance-linked securities that have been increasingly used as an alternative to traditional reinsurance for two decades. In exchange for a Spread over to the risk-free rate, protection is provided against stated perils that could impact the insured portfolio. A broad literature has flourished to investigate what are the features that significantly influence the Spread, in addition to the portfolio’s expected loss. Almost all proposed models are based on multivariate linear regression, that has provided satisfactory predictive performance as well as easily interpretability. This thesis also explores the use of Machine Learning models in modeling the determinant at issuances, contrasting both their predictive performance and their interpretability with respect to traditional models. An overview of the economics of CAT bonds, on current literature and on the statistical methodologies will be provided also. Aim of this Thesis is to provide a solid framework of insurance risk transfer for both pure underwriting and catastrophe risks, investigating risk transfer practices from traditional to alternative and most innovative technique. In these fields, firstly a suitable risk model is used in order to describe main impacts on insurance business model. Then, the main innovative alternative risk transfer for catastrophe risks are illustrated and CAT Bond will be adequately described, investigating main pricing models using a machine learning approach. Finally, a possible Italian CAT Bond issuance is provided in order to investigate an integrated solution with a traditional reinsurance underlying an alternative risk transfer in order to achieve a public-private partnership to natural catastrophe

Non-State Superpowers, Transnational Challenges, and 21st Century Global Order: Private Sector Climate Action in an Age of State Inaction

This project explores the new actors, issues, and dynamics that are reshaping the land-scape and context in which states will have to advance their interests in the 21st century. Examining the case study of private sector climate action, it demonstrates that select transnational actors have not just the capacity to alter relationships between govern-ments, as scholars like Nye and Keohane anticipated in the 1970s, but the ability and, increasingly, the ambition to address non-traditional issues that states cannot address independently. Focusing on 34 of the world’s largest companies, representing four in-dustry groups (energy-intensive, automotive, technology, and finance) and three main headquarter countries (Germany, India, and the United States), this project investi-gates and analyzes the process by which private sector actors coalesced into a new pat-tern of response to climate change during the 2010–2017 timeframe and became key, even leading, actors in the issue area. It considers what the phenomenon of private sec-tor climate action implies about changes in global order, including in the actors that are shaping a landscape defined increasingly by non-traditional issues—and, in certain cases, by states’ abdication of leadership and action in the face of these complex new challenges. I make three main arguments in this study. First, I argue that private sector actors coalesced around a set of climate-relevant actions as the new “dominant de-sign,” or paradigm for long-term success in a changing environment. Second, in con-trast to the intuitive explanation, which is that during the 2010s changes in their politi-cal and consumer contexts led companies to perceive more serious climate-related risks and/or opportunities, I argue that individual companies did not perceive increas-ingly strong material incentives to alter their approach vis-à-vis climate change—and it was in this context that they coalesced into a new pattern of response to the issue. The pattern was emergent, or a second-order outcome that would not have been anticipat-ed on the basis of how individual actors perceived the climate issue. Third, I propose that the condition accounting for why companies coalesced in an emergent fashion into a new pattern of behavior was their declining confidence in states’ willingness to play their expected role vis-à-vis a critical issue poised to shape future global trends. As I show, from 2010 through 2017, as companies adopted cli-mate practices and became more deeply invested in them, and as select actors altered their approaches decisively and adopted “climate active” sensibilities, companies’ out-look for bold state action (in the form of high-impact climate-related regulation) de-clined significantly. Among the industry groups, technology and finance were the drivers of emer-gent action. Within most industries, American companies undertook the highest abso-lute level of action that “ran ahead of” expectations for costly climate-related risks or high-yield climate-related opportunities. However, German companies contributed most significantly to the upward trend in emergent action—an especially notable find-ing given that historically they have operated in a context of strong state leadership in the climate issue area. The overarching implication of this study is that non-state actors that individu-ally do not appear inclined to alter their approaches vis-à-vis a global issue can, through a decentralized and uncoordinated process, and in the context of states failing to provide leadership, come to change course and move in a cohesive new direction—and ultimately reshape the landscape in which states must advance their own interests

Climate Services: The Business of Physical Risk

A growing number of investors, insurers, financial services providers, and nonprofits rely on information about localized physical climate risks, like floods, hurricanes, and wildfires. The outcomes of these risk projections have significant consequences in the economy, including allocating investment capital, impacting housing prices and demographic shifts, and prioritizing adaptation infrastructure projects. The climate risk information available to individual citizens and municipalities, however, is limited and expensive to access. Further, many providers of climate services use black box models that make overseeing the scientific rigor of their methodologies impossible— a concern given scientific critiques that many may be obfuscating the uncertainty in their projections. Municipalities that want to challenge insurance and bond rating determinations must rally significant resources for modeling and data, a scattershot policing method at best. And when companies have access to sophisticated modeling about future impacts— some of them potentially devastating for entire communities—the decision to share that information has been largely left up to the corporation. This Article argues that actionable and transparent information about our climate-changed future is a public good that the private sector cannot be depended upon to provide equitably or reliably. Further, all private climate services rely on upstream climate data and models that were collected and produced by an enormous network of public institutions. There are important lessons to be learned from the recent success of special interests in pressing for the privatization of weather data and services—a trend that has knock-on effects for weather forecasts globally. This Article urges state and federal governments to invest in their own climate services capacity at a scale not currently contemplated. Risk assessments lacking a scientific basis can lead to maladaptation across the economy. While it is a potentially limited matter of consumer protection or tort liability when a consultancy over-promises its analytical capabilities, it is a much larger problem if regulators themselves misunderstand the limits of uncertainty when designing risk oversight

Net Zero Roadmap for Copper and Nickel

As we seek to meet the challenges of climate change impacts, many commodities will play an increasing role in decarbonizing economies. There are increasing challenges of addressing the emissions from extraction of these commodities needed to support the zero-carbon transition. CCSI, in a consortium with Carbon Trust, RMI, and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines, developed the Net Zero Roadmap to 2050 for Copper and Nickel Value Chains to support the copper and nickel mining sectors in taking collective, coordinated action by providing a clear, approachable, and accepted roadmap for decarbonization. Our key messages to mining CEOs are as follows: Demand for Energy Transition Metals (ETMs) doubles GHG emissions. To reach net zero, ETM emissions will need to reduce by 90%. Technological solutions are already or soon will be available. Three waves of technology deployment: (i) Renewable energy, site operational energy efficiency improvements, and process optimization; (ii) zero-emissions haulage trucks; (iii) process heat electrification and green hydrogen. Enormous ESG risks associated with rising ETM demand. For example, many copper and nickel reserves are located in high water risk and high biodiversity areas respectively, necessitating proactive and responsible management. Just Transition. Mining companies, governments and other actors have an important role in enabling communities to reimagine their future at the center of a new climate economy and in the process build community resilience. Collaboration is key to achieving net zero. Mining companies, value chain actors, and policymakers must work together to accelerate the development, deployment, and co-investment in the technological innovations required for the mine of the future, and to develop net zero industry standards, regulations, and frameworks. The project was commissioned by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), as part of the World Bank Group’s Climate-Smart Mining initiative

New Waves of IoT Technologies Research – Transcending Intelligence and Senses at the Edge to Create Multi Experience Environments

The next wave of Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) brings new technological developments that incorporate radical advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), edge computing processing, new sensing capabilities, more security protection and autonomous functions accelerating progress towards the ability for IoT systems to self-develop, self-maintain and self-optimise. The emergence of hyper autonomous IoT applications with enhanced sensing, distributed intelligence, edge processing and connectivity, combined with human augmentation, has the potential to power the transformation and optimisation of industrial sectors and to change the innovation landscape. This chapter is reviewing the most recent advances in the next wave of the IoT by looking not only at the technology enabling the IoT but also at the platforms and smart data aspects that will bring intelligence, sustainability, dependability, autonomy, and will support human-centric solutions.acceptedVersio