#Hong Kong risk reporting

[darkautomaton]

Integrating Risk Management into Corporate Culture in Hong Kong

As regulatory complexity and economic uncertainty continues rising across Hong Kong and mainland China markets, establishing risk-aware cultures has become pivotal for corporations seeking to embed resilience against crises. Beyond building risk monitoring systems, companies today need to drive mindset shifts from the leadership down to infuse vigilance and responsibility towards hazard identification at all levels.

Cultivating Risk Intelligence Starts at the Top

For most organizations, the cultural transformation necessary to view enterprise risk oversight as a shared culture rather than just a compliance activity starts with Asia regional leaders and Hong Kong senior executives. This means not only investment into formal governance through appointing Chief Risk Officers but also having CXOs like Chief Finance, Information and HR Officers spearhead training to their teams around prevailing risk landscapes and vigilance necessary in day-to-day decision making.

Incentivizing Risk Reporting from the Ground Up

Middle managers and frontline analysts will then carry this risk-aware DNA through the organizational bloodstream into daily processes. This demands establishing transparent reporting channels, securing anonymity and anti-retaliation policies to encourage surfacing of suspected risks through what-if questioning or flagging incidents that seemed“off” without fear. Especially around integrity hazards like fraud/bribery, safety hazards like harassment or mental health situations, or regulatory hazards like IP/data transfer violations, removing stigma is key.

Aligning Strategy and Operations with Risk Perspectives

Ultimately, for a risk-informed culture to stick, considerations around financial, reputational and regulatory exposures should drive strategy planning as well as operational enhancements across everything from supply chain design to cybersecurity to financial controls. Key risk indicators must be integrated into dashboards at multiple levels with drilling down to understand root causes. Frameworks like ISO 31000 or COSO provide blueprints here from setup to ongoing assessments into mitigation tracking.

With leadership setting the tone, transparency enabling ground up risk reporting without repercussions, and strategy/operations reflecting risk learnings - global companies can align around managing uncertainty as Hong Kong/China markets, regulations and technologies rapidly evolve. Risk management thereby transforms from restrictive compliance activity to enabler of sustainable advantage and resilience.

[mariacallous]

Georgians are in the streets fighting for their democracy. The Georgian Dream party, which is working to align Tbilisi with Moscow’s interests, declared victory in the country’s Oct. 26 election before the votes were even counted. Voters and election observers were harassed by Russian-funded gangs and mobsters; just after the election, protesters holding European Union flags were sprayed with water from high-powered hoses. And the person who has the iron will necessary to lead the charge against Russian-inspired authoritarianism in Georgia? A woman: President Salome Zourabichvili.

This is no accident. Across the world, women have, and are, playing incredible roles as bulwarks against the rise of authoritarianism. Moldovan President Maia Sandu is standing up to a tsunami of Russian disinformation. In Poland, women played a critical role in the effort to oust the right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party. In Hong Kong, women continue to be the practical and normative face of resistance to Chinese authoritarian rule.

These are the freedom fighters of the 21st century. And yet, the U.S. national security community tends to view women’s issues as a domestic concern, frivolous, or irrelevant to “hard” security matters. For example, in 2003, discussions of securing Iraq excluded women, with a top U.S. general stating, “When we get the place secure, then we’ll be able to talk about women’s issues.” More recently, the role of women in the military has been reduced to discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusion, rather than a focus on how women have been vital to solving the United States’ most wicked national security problems—from serving on the front lines in combat to providing essential intelligence analysis. But if the overall aim of U.S. national strategy is to shore up democracy and democratic freedoms, the treatment of women and girls cannot be ignored.

Globally, women’s rights are often eroding in both policy and practice, from the struggles of the Iranian and Afghan women who exist under gender apartheid to the Kenyan women experiencing the harsh backlash of the rise of the manosphere. In tandem, there’s been a sharp rise in reports of online harassment and misogyny worldwide.

National security analysts explore issues and psychologies through any number of prisms, but Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) remains an underutilized one. One of the national security community’s core tasks is discerning signals from noise in the global strategic environment, and regressive ideas on gender and gender equality can be a useful proxy metric for democratic backsliding and authoritarian rise.

The United States’ 2023 Strategy and National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security provides the backbone for the United States to leverage WPS to counter authoritarianism. It highlights that displays of misogyny online are linked to violent action. The plan also points out that formally incorporating gendered perspectives is essential for maintaining democratic institutions at home and modeling them aboard. This includes recognizing misogyny—online or in policy—as an early indicator of authoritarian rise.

Unfortunately, WPS is often misread as simply including more women in the national security workforce. But it is more than that. It offers a framework for understanding why it is useful to take gendered perspectives into account when assessing how the actions of individuals or groups enhance national security, which is especially important at a time when authoritarian regimes are weaponizing gender in ways that strengthen their grip on power domestically and justify their aggression abroad.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has argued that he is the guardian of traditional Christian values, telling women that they should be back at home raising children, and has been rolling back domestic violence laws at the same time. Days before invading Ukraine in February 2022, Putin said, “Like it or don’t like it, it’s your duty, my beauty,” which was widely interpreted within Russia as a reference to martial rape. Russia’s own army is built on a foundation of hierarchical hazing in which “inferior” men are degraded by their comrades. With that kind of rhetoric from the top, is it any wonder that Russian soldiers’ war crimes have included the rapes of women and children?

But Putin isn’t alone. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has consolidated media outlets to censor women’s voices, in the name of protecting traditional values. He has also used coercive financial practices to push women out of the workforce and positions of political power and into more traditional roles of wife and mother. In Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko attempted to force the deportation of the most prominent woman opposition leader and imprisoned her after she tore up her passport to prevent it. In China, where women were once told they “hold up half the sky,” President Xi Jinping has worked to undo decades of Chinese Communist Party policy on gender equality. Chinese women are now being encouraged to return home and become mothers, while feminists have been targeted legally and socially.

The WPS agenda provides the U.S. national security community with three opportunities to recognize, understand, and counter early-stage authoritarianism.

First, the United States can do a much better job of supporting women’s groups around the world as a central aspect of its national security strategy. Women’s groups are often a bellwether for authoritarian rise and democratic backsliding—as currently on display in Russia, China, Hungary, Georgia, and Belarus, where women inside and outside their respective regimes have been specifically targeted or attacked.

Women have also found innovative ways to resist the rise of authoritarian norms. In places like Moldova, women have acted as bulwarks against authoritarianism despite vicious disinformation campaigns targeting women leaders. Yet when it comes to formulating and executing strategies on national security, women’s groups are often left in the margins and their concerns dismissed.

Second, gender perspectives are essential to more fulsome intelligence gathering and analysis. The U.S. intelligence community can do a much better job of integrating gender—particularly as it relates to the treatment of the most vulnerable—as an indicator of societal and democratic health. This includes understanding how both masculinities and femininities influence decision-making and how, in turn, lived experiences act as necessary analytical tools. Training collectors and analysts of intelligence to recognize gendered indicators will provide a more robust view of the geopolitical landscape and fill critical holes in national security decision-making.

Finally, the United States must improve the participation of its national security community in WPS and feminist foreign-policy discussions. For too long, the “hard” security sector has distanced itself from more “human” security-focused endeavors and treated women’s rights as something that’s just nice to have.

Yet national security is an essentially human endeavor, and gender is a central component of what it means to be human. This is something that needs to be appreciated to better understand the many dimensions of the conflict—disinformation, online influence campaigns, and lawfare—that authoritarian regimes are waging against the United States and its allies.

[azlia-iconoclast]

All that is confirmed will be modified:

the abortion ban that already exist to state level and killed teens on texas because they got denied even in a SA situationa will now be nationwide

ending any chance to integrate minorities and just letting the hate and discrimination run rampant again without institutions to keep watch

allowing states to ban diverse number of Healthcare treatments and medications which go from gender hormones to the morning after pills

tariffs are gonna have backlash and cause countertarrifs ending many of our trade deals and evaluating the dollars

the billionares that backed trump like the ultraconservative Timothy mellon, the heritage foundation with the hyper religious agaenda or elon musk that is obsessed with hating public transport and trans people are going to have free reign to do as they please.

the ending of several institution and more privatization which includes less education subsidies for poor families, help for disabled people, subsidies for Healthcare, the weather system and report, the department of education shrinking and allowing old religious policies, the watch for the compliance of the civil rights act is going to disappear , the department of health is also going to shirk, the watch for compliance for climate change is going to disappear the DEI, EPA, and the ACA will be erased with many more, just to name the ones that are going to affect directly the most

as consequence of the mentioned institutions disappearing hate speech will basically be legal again affecting the culture and the amount of religious propaganda, discrimination while hiring and helping disable people get a job will be legally impossible

completing the genocide in gaza and continuing funding Israel expansion into Lebanon not to mention he's dividing Ukraine in 2 with a neutral zone which will cause a second bigger war because nobody is going to be conformed with that.

the peace attempts that were happening with china over Taiwan and Hong kong are now going to be closed leaving war as only option for the long future

The SCOTUS will now have 5 of 9 Supreme Court LIFETIME seats filled by Trump and the damage will be generational given the justices are young for the lifelong position and all 5 are part of the Christian nationals. Any attempt to undo what trump is going to damage with his policies will be blocked by their majority specially the medical bans and the freedom corporations will now have, so not only our full generation will suffer trump legacy but your kids and their kids

when trump took the confidential documents boxes to mar a lago when he lost last election it made him look to NATO and the 5 eyes intelligence institution (fuck them both hypocrite imperialists) complain for the security risk which means the allies will not want to share intel with the us now that he's back forcing America to have the old interventionist spionage role to get it's own, which will increase world tensions.

whether people voted for trump to punish dems not fulfilling their promises or being part of such mentioned genocides, because they hate the lgbtq and DEI or they really want to go back to the dark ages culturally and socially with christian nationalism ideology, all of them just shot themselves and everyone kids future.

Adieu à jamais Amérique, je croyais que tu changeais mais ceci est ton cœur et ton vrai visage, je pensais vivre ici plus d'un siècle et t'aider à te transformer, mais il est clair que tu choisis la Cruauté. J'ai de toute façon un dernier coup à tirer, si cela se brise au moins je mourrai enfin avant que tu ne commences ton interventionnisme mondial comme dans les années 50 encore.

[madamepestilence]

H5N1: What to know before fear spreads

What is H5N1?

H5N1 is a 1996 strain of the Spanish or Avian Flu first detected in Chinese birds before spreading globally across various avian species. H5N1 is similar to H1N1, but spreads slower and has a much higher mortality rate.

H5N1 may also be referred to as Influenza A. The American Association of Bovine Practitioners has seen fit to rename H5N1 to Bovine Influenza A Virus, or BIAV, and are encouraging others to use the same terminology.

I would not be surprised if the colloquial name among the public becomes Bovine Flu or American Flu in the coming months, and may be referred to as the Chinese Flu by the same folks who took the spark of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic as an excuse to be publicly racist to East Asian people without social repercussions.

BIAV is a virus, meaning that it is a (probably) non-living packet of self-replicating infectious material with a high rate of mutation. BIAV is structured similarly to SARS-CoV-2, having a packet of infectious material encased in a spherical shell with a corona, or crown, of proteins that can latch to living cells to inject RNA.

Image source with interactive model: ViralZone - H5N1 subtype

What is the history of BIAV?

In 1996 and 1997, an outbreak of BIAV occurred among poultry and infected 18 people in Hong Kong, 6 of which died. This seemingly isolated incident then infected ~860 people with a >50% death rate.

At the time, BIAV was known as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or HPAI, and killed nearly 100% of chickens within a 48 hour period.

From 2003 to 2005, continual outbreaks occurred in China and other East Asian countries, before spreading to Cambodia, the Netherlands, Thailand, and Vietnam.

From 2014 to 2016, it began being detected in American fowl, as well as mutating the H5N6 (lethal in birds, no human to human transmission) and H5N8 (largely spread through turkeys, ducks had immunity) viruses.

BIAV has since evolved into a clade known as 2.3.4.4b, and was first detected in 2021 in wild American birds. This then caused outbreaks in 2022 among wild and domesticated birds (such as chickens) alike, but was largely being overshadowed by the pressing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic at the time.

From 2022 to 2023, it was observed to be spreading among various mammals, including humans. Now, in 2024, we're having the most concerning rapid outbreak of BIAV since 2003.

BIAV is known to spread from mammal to mammal, particularly between cows and humans. BIAV may also be spread from cow to cow (highly likely, but not confirmed - this is likely the reason the virus has spread to Idaho from Texan cattle), and is known to be lethal to domestic cats and birds within 48 hours.

How does BIAV spread?

BIAV spreads through fomites - direct contact with infected animals or infected surfaces and then touching parts of your face or other orifices - as well as through airborne particulates, which may be inhaled and enter the sinuses and lungs.

BIAV is known to spread through:

Asymptomatic Ducks, geese, swans, various shorebirds

Symptomatic, may be lethal Foxes, bears, seals, sea lions, polar bears, domestic cats, dogs, minks, goats, cows, (potentially human to human, but unconfirmed - there have only been 8 potential human to human cases in 2024).

How can I protect against BIAV?

As BIAV is a type of Influenza A, existing protocols should do fine.

Current recommendations are to wash your hands vigorously after interacting with birds (I would also recommend doing this with mammals), avoid touching your face or other open orifices, and wear N95 masks.

Avoid sick or dead animals entirely - I would also recommend reporting them to your local Animal Control or veterinary centre and warning them about the infection risk. People who work with animals are recommended to also wear full PPE such as N95 masks, eye protection, gloves, and partake in vigorous hand washing.

If you suspect you've caught BIAV, seek medical attention immediately. Existing medications such as oseltamivir phosphate, zanamivir, peramivir, and baloxavir marboxil can reduce BIAV's ability to replicate.

Standard flu shots will not protect against BIAV. Remember - symptoms of BIAV may not manifest for between 2 to 8 days, and potentially infected people should be monitored for at least 10 days.

How far has BIAV spread?

BIAV is currently a global virus, though the current infection location of note is the United States.

Image Key: Dark red - Countries with humans, poultry and wild birds killed by H5N1 Deep red - Countries with poultry or wild birds killed by H5N1 and has reported human cases of H5N1 Light red - Countries with poultry or wild birds killed by H5N1

Image source: Wikipedia - Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 - File: Global spread of H5N1 map

Image source: Metro.co.uk - Map shows where bird flu is spreading in US amid new warning - File: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s H5N1 bird flu detections map across the United States

Should I be afraid?

You needn't be afraid, just prepared. BIAV has a concerningly high lethality, but this ironically culls its spread somewhat.

In the event human to human transmission of BIAV is confirmed, this will likely mainly affect marginalized communities, poor people, and homeless people, who are likely to have less access to medical care, and a higher likelihood of working in jobs that require frequent close human contact, such as fast food or retail jobs.

Given the response to SARS-CoV-2, corporations - and probably the government - may shove a proper response under the rug and refuse to participate in a full quarantine, which may leave people forced to go to work in dangerous conditions.

If this does spread into an epidemic or pandemic, given our extensive knowledge about Influenza, and the US having a backup vaccine for a prior strain of H5N1, a vaccine should be able to be developed relatively quickly and would hopefully be deployed freely without charge - we won't have to worry about a situation like The Stand.

Wash your hands, keep clean, avoid large social gatherings where possible, wear an N95 mask if you can afford them (Remember: Cloth masks are the least protective, but are better than nothing. If you can't afford N95 masks, I recommend wearing a well-fitted cloth mask with a disposable face mask over it to prevent pneumonia from moisture buildup in the disposable mask), support the disabled, poor, and homeless, and stay educated.

We can do better this time.

Further things to check out:

YouTube: MedCram - H5N1 Cattle Outbreak: Background and Currently Known Facts (ft. Roger Seheult, M.D.)

Wikipedia - Influenza A virus subtype H5N1

Maine.gov - Avian Influenza and People

CDC.gov - Technical Report: Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Viruses

Wikipedia - H5N1 genetic structure

realagriculture - Influenza infection in cattle gets new name: Bovine Influenza A Virus (BIAV)

[covid-safer-hotties]

The Long-term Complications of Covid-19 Infection - Published Sept 13, 2024

Context.— As the Covid-19 pandemic continues into its 4th year, reports of long-term morbidity and mortality are now attracting attention. Recent studies suggest that Covid-19 survivors are at increased risk of common illnesses, such as myocardial infarction, diabetes mellitus and autoimmune disorders. Mortality may also be increased. This article will review the evidence that supports some of these observations and provide an opinion about their validity and their relevance to insured cohorts.

Background Many Covid-19 survivors report protracted symptoms, sometimes lasting 3 years or more. These are collectively called post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) or long Covid. They have been frequently described.1–4 In the past year, reports of long-term complications such as atrial fibrillation, heart failure, stroke and pulmonary embolism have emerged. In some reports these established disease entities are erroneously described as long Covid, generating confusion. The distinction is important: illness reported in Covid survivors are not restricted to the long Covid cohort. Thus, they are relevant to the majority of the North American population who have been infected by SARS-CoV-2, and not just the estimated 5-10% of individuals who belong to the long Covid cohort. This paper will examine the reports of increased incidence of cardiovascular diseases in both and will examine the reported long-term increase in mortality.

Cardiovascular disease after 1 and 2 years Multiple studies have reported an increased risk of cardiovascular events at 1 year. A February 2022 analysis of 153,760 US veterans, followed for 1 year after Covid-19 infection, reported an increased risk of cerebrovascular disease (HR 1.53), ischemic heart disease (HR 1.66), thromboembolic disease (HR 2.39) and atrial fibrillation (HR 1.71).5 Risk was greatest in those hospitalized and those with pre-morbid illnesses. However, risk was also elevated in outpatients, who constituted the vast majority of the cohort. These findings have been corroborated in 2 further studies. In a 2023 analysis of 690,000 Covid-19 survivors, drawn from the TriNetX database–self-described as the world’s largest global Covid-19 dataset–there was an increased risk of cerebrovascular disease (HR 1.6), ischemic heart disease (HR 2.8), thromboembolic disease (HR 2.6) and atrial fibrillation (HR 2.4) at 1 year.6 In contrast to the VA study which examined a predominantly older male population, the subjects in this study were younger, with mean age 44, and 57% were female. Risk was higher in the >65 age group and was not limited to inpatients. In a May 2023 Lancet retrospective analysis of 535,000 Hong Kong (HK) and 16,000 UK Covid 19 survivors, similar hazard ratios were recorded for stroke (HR 1.2), ischemic heart disease (HR 1.32), atrial fibrillation (HR 1.31) and deep venous thrombosis (HR 1.74).7 However, it is worth noting that while follow-up was described as 28 months for the HK cohort and 17 months for the UK cohort, the median follow-up for the HK group was 146 days and was 243 days for the UK cohort, somewhat limiting the conclusions of true impact at 1 year. Contradicting these studies, a prospective analysis of 17,000 Covid-19 survivors in the UK Biobank, did not document an increased risk of cardiovascular outcomes amongst outpatients, with the exception of thromboembolic disease (HR 2.7).8 An August 2023 analysis of 138,000 VA Covid-19 survivors followed for 2 years– the longest follow-up period to date– reported that the risk of complications in outpatients had returned to baseline at 6 months.9 In contrast, the risk for multiple cardiovascular and thromboembolic complications in the hospitalized cohort remained elevated at 2 years. None of these 5 studies was limited to individuals with long Covid, but similar findings have been reported in this group: a recent analysis of 13,435 individuals who had been diagnosed with long Covid, based on a typical array of symptoms, reported increased risks at 1 year for ischemic heart disease (HR 1.7), ischemic stroke (HR 2.1) and pulmonary embolism (HR 3.6).10

These studies document a fairly consistent, increased risk of cardiovascular complications among Covid-19 survivors. However, important questions remain. Amongst these: does increasing population immunity and vaccination change the risk? Is the magnitude of risk similar for all SARS CoV-2 variants? Does reinfection increase the risk? Answers to some are available. Vaccination appears to attenuate the risk: a Korean study of 592,000 individuals post-Covid-19 infection, showed that vaccination decreased the risk of heart attack and stroke by approximately 50%.11 This finding was replicated in a large US cohort where major adverse cardiovascular events were reduced by a similar amount for full vaccination, and by 25% for partial vaccination.12 Thus, while vaccination does not eliminate long-term complications, it appears to provide a substantial protective effect.

Reinfection may increase the risk of sequelae. In a large US VA cohort of 440,000 Covid survivors, of whom 40,000 had one or more SARS-CoV-2 reinfections, the risk of cardiovascular disorders was increased (HR 3.02), when compared to a single infection.13 Moreover, this risk was not modified by vaccination.

The impact of different variants is less clear. Most of the described studies were conducted in 2020-2021 when delta and pre-delta variants predominated. It is unclear whether similar outcomes would characterize infection with Omicron variants, which remain dominant in most countries since November 2021. Interestingly, the risk of cardiovascular complications in the cohort of Hong Kong survivors described above, where the Omicron was the prevalent strain, was no different than among the comparator UK Biobank cohort, where pre-Omicron strains were prevalent.7

Is there extra long-term mortality after Covid-19 infection? Extra mortality has been reported by several studies.6,8,14–18 A 2021 US analysis of 400 Covid-19 survivors, documented increased mortality (HR 2.5) at 1 year.14 The additional risk was confined to individuals who had been hospitalized. In 2022, 3 studies reported excess mortality in 3 different countries. The first, an Estonian whole-population study of 66,000 Covid-19 survivors, of whom 8% were hospitalized, reported a 3-fold increase in mortality at 12 months.15 Mortality was particularly elevated in the first 5 weeks following infection. For those over age 60, increased mortality persisted until 12 months (HR 2.8). However, for those less than age 60, mortality was not increased after 35 days. The second, an analysis of 690,000 Covid-19 survivors from the TriNetX database also reported increased 1-year mortality risk (HR 1.6).6 This was largely explained by excess deaths in individuals over age 65; below age 45 risk was not increased. For the outpatient cohort the risk of mortality was lower than that of the comparison group (HR 0.46). The third, a study of 25,000 Covid-19 survivors drawn from the UK Biobank, reported increased mortality risk at 20 months, for those with severe Covid infection (HR 14.7), but also an increased risk for those with mild disease (HR 1.23).16 Stratification by age was not provided.

In 2023 4 further studies reported similar, but at times quantitatively different results. Two analyses drew on the UK Biobank cohort. In the first, a prospective evaluation of 7,800 SARS-CoV-2 PCR positive individuals, increased mortality was reported for the study group at 18 months (HR 5.0), when compared to both a contemporary and an historical cohort.17 For the non-severe cases the mortality risk remained elevated (HR 4.8). The second study, already described above– a comparative analysis of 7600 Covid survivors from the UK Biobank and 530,000 Covid survivors in Hong Kong–reported increased mortality (HR 4.16) after 17 months for the former and 28 months for the latter.7 The risk of mortality was higher in the UK than the HK cohort, a difference the authors posited was due to Omicron being the dominant variant in HK during the study period. The risk remained elevated, but less so, for younger cohorts and for mild Covid-19 infections.

Finally, 2 large US studies recently reported mortality at 2 years. In the first, an analysis of 138,000 US veteran Covid-19 survivors with 5.9 million controls, the risk of death for the hospitalized cohort remained elevated at 2 years (HR 1.29).8 In contrast, the risk of death for the outpatient cohort returned to baseline at 6 months. Breakdown of risk by age-group was not provided. The second study, also of US veterans, reported similar findings. In a cohort of 280,000 Covid-19 survivors the risk of death remained elevated at 2 years (HR 2.0).18 The risk was highest in the first 90 days (HR 6.3) and decreased at 6 months (HR 1.18). Thereafter, the risk in Covid-19 survivors was slightly less than the control group (HR 0.89). A post-hoc subgroup analysis examined and refuted the possibility that accelerated mortality in the control group could have explained the lower mortality in Covid-19 survivors. The risk of death in hospitalized individuals remained elevated at 2 years (HR 1.22).

How Plausible is this Information? The studies described above command attention by virtue of their size and the consistency of their findings in different populations, and in different countries. They are also supported by the observations of long-term pathophysiologic abnormalities following SARS-CoV-2 infection, such as ongoing inflammation, persistence of virus, and immune system dysfunction. However, the negative ledger is also substantial. Observational studies such as these, no matter how well-designed, remain open to many types of bias. Reliance on diagnostic codes, prescription records, laboratory results and tallies of clinical visits, to establish disease incidence, is intrinsically error-prone and makes cross-study comparisons difficult. Perhaps more importantly, the cohorts described above were different in many respects, varying from the older, male-predominant cohort of the US VA system to the younger healthier cohort of the UK Biobank. Further, cohorts were constituted during the first year of the pandemic, at a time when healthcare delivery was disrupted, lockdowns were in effect, vaccination and antivirals were largely unavailable, and population immunity levels were low. Thus, it could be argued that the observed outcomes are better explained by an evolving pandemic, rather than solely SARS-CoV-2 infection. This could also explain the most recent reports that after 2 years of follow-up, the risk of both Covid-19 complications and mortality, in most of those infected (i.e., the non-hospitalized), is no longer elevated. It also evident that most of the reported extra mortality is occurring in the early months following infection, where survival curves separate rapidly.6,10,15,18

Are these findings relevant to an insured population? ‘Partially’ is probably the best answer. The most important observation is that hospitalization, and in-particular an intensive care unit admission, is the dominant risk factor for both morbidity and mortality. This risk appears to persist up to 2 years. The second important risk element is the presence of comorbid conditions. This observation raises the interesting question of what exactly causes the extra mortality. Is it due to ‘protracted’ SARS-Co-V-2 infection or is it caused by a recognized complication of Covid-19, such as pulmonary fibrosis or acute kidney injury? Or is it explained by an aggravation of a comorbid illness? Or is it a complication of long Covid? There is a likelihood that all these mechanisms were at play in the cohorts under study.

For non-hospitalized individuals, and those that are healthy, the evidence for extra morbidity and mortality after the first 3-6 months is far from conclusive. For the long Covid cohort, the evidence for additional mortality requires further supporting evidence. As the prevalence of co-morbid conditions is lower in insured populations, one might reasonably expect, based on current evidence, that longer-term morbidity and mortality due to Covid-19 infection will be minimally affected.

References 1.Davis H, McCorkell L, Vogel, J. et al Long COVID: major findings, mechanisms and recommendations. Nat Rev Microbiol 21, 133–146 (2023). doi.org/10.1038/s41579-022-00846-2

2.Meagher T. Long COVID - An Early Perspective. J Insur Med. 2021 Jan 1;49(1):19–23. doi: 10.17849/insm-49-1-1-5.1. PMID: 33784738.

3.Meagher T. Long COVID – One year On. J Insur Med. 2022 Jan 1;49:1–6. doi: 10.17849/insm-49-3-1-6.1. PMID: 33561352.

4.Meagher T. Long Covid - Into the Third Year. J Insur Med 2023;50(1):54–58. doi.org/10.17849/insm-50-1-54-58.1

5.Xie Y, Xu E, Bowe B et al Long-term cardiovascular outcomes of COVID-19. Nat Med 28, 583–590 (2022). doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-01689-3

6.Wang W, Wang CY, Wang SI et al Long-term cardiovascular outcomes in COVID-19 survivors among non-vaccinated population: A retrospective cohort study from the TriNetX US collaborative networks. eClinicalMedicine. 2022 Nov;53:101619. doi: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101619

7.Lam I, Wong C, Zhang, R et al Long-term post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 infection: a retrospective, multi-database cohort study in Hong Kong and the UK. eClinicalMedicine Vol. 60 Published: May 11, 2023. doi: doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2023.102000

8.Raisi-Estabragh Z, Cooper J, Salih A, et al Cardiovascular disease and mortality sequelae of COVID-19 in the UK Biobank Heart 2023;109:119–126.

9.Bowe, B., Xie, Y. & Al-Aly, Z. Postacute sequelae of COVID-19 at 2 years. Nat Med 29, 2347–2357 (2023). doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02521-2

10.DeVries A, Shambhu S, Sloop S et al One-Year Adverse Outcomes Among US Adults With Post–COVID-19 Condition vs Those Without COVID-19 in a Large Commercial Insurance Database. JAMA Health Forum. 2023;4(3):e230010. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.0010

11.Kim Y, Huh K, Park Y et al Association Between Vaccination and Acute Myocardial Infarction and Ischemic Stroke After COVID-19 Infection. JAMA. 2022;328(9):887–889. doi:10.1001/jama.2022.12992

12.Jiang J, Chan L, Kauffman J, et al Impact of Vaccination on Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events in Patients With COVID-19 Infection. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2023 Mar, 81(9):928–930. doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2022.12.006

13.Bowe B, Xie, Y, Al-Aly Z. Acute and postacute sequelae associated with SARS-CoV-2 reinfection. Nat Med 28, 2398–2405 (2022). doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-02051-3

14.Mainous AG, Rooks BJ, Wu, et al COVID-19 post-acute sequelae among adults: 12 month mortality risk. Front Med (Lausanne). 2021;8:778434. doi:10.3389/fmed.2021.778434

15.Uuskula A, Jurgenson T, Pisarev H et al Long-term mortality following SARS-CoV-2 infection: A national cohort study from Estonia. The Lancet Regional Health - Europe 2022;18:100394 Published online 29 April 2022. doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2022.100394

16.Xiang Y, Zhang R, Qiu G. et al Association of Covid-19 with risks of hospitalization and mortality from other disorders post-infection: A study of the UK Biobank. medRxiv doi: doi.org/10.1101/2022.03.23.22272811

17.Wan E, Mathur S, Zhang R et al Association of COVID-19 with short- and long-term risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality: a prospective cohort in UK Biobank, Cardiovascular Research, Volume 119, Issue 8, June 2023, 1718–1727. doi.org/10.1093/cvr/cvac195

18.Iwashyna TJ, Seelye S, Berkowitz TS, et al Late Mortality After COVID-19 Infection Among US Veterans vs Risk-Matched Comparators: A 2-Year Cohort Analysis. JAMA Intern Med. Published online August 21, 2023. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.3587

[pscottm]

“In New York and London, owners of gleaming office towers are walking away from their debt rather than pouring good money after bad. The landlords of downtown San Francisco’s largest mall have abandoned it. A new Hong Kong skyscraper is only a quarter leased,” Bloomberg reports. “The creeping rot inside commercial real estate is like a dark seam running through the global economy. Even as stock markets rally and investors are hopeful that the fastest interest-rate increases in a generation will ebb, the trouble in property is set to play out for years.”

Remember kiddies, it's OK to walk away from you debts! A lender will present payments as a moral obligation but as demonstrated by businesses, they are not. Lenders assume risk and sometimes lose as do you.

Except for student loans. Congress made those non-dischargable during bankruptcy into law.

[vergess]

Let's all remember that despite the temptation, this isn't actually funny. These people went to a concert, and were blinded en masse.

This is horrific.

The organizers of this concert need to be held accountable for maiming an entire audience, as well as possibly the performers.

I don't know literally anything about Hong Kong law, but if it is in any way possible, this needs to be pursued as what it is: negligence leading to a mass maiming.

After all, this is a known risk that concert organizers are supposed to be aware of. It has happened before.

However, as of this time, the "lab grade UV-C lamp" thing seems to be a rumour. The only lab which has investigated this incident (on the event organizer's payroll), says this was caused by a malfunctioning UV-A lamp.

It is unknown if the blindness will be permanent or temporary at this time.

[kelpeigh]

I was at one of the few shows in which he played Jackboot Jump.

He made a little speech beforehand that I don't remember verbatim (there's probably video out there; NYC 11/2019) except for the last two words but it went along the lines of:

I've been struggling to find a balance writing protest music. I'm constantly trying to get important messages across in my work. If I weave them into art, people will be more receptive to hearing the message in the first place. The more subtle I am, the more people I reach. But I look around and see students and reporters being brutalized in shopping malls for daring to speak up and all I can think is... fuck subtlety.

For context, this was amid the Hong Kong protests of 2019 and there had recently been some particularly gruesome accounts in the news

So yeah, Jackboot Jump was a calculated risk. It's not a surprise that it didn't blow up ("fuck subtlety", no studio recording release, not on an album). It's doubly a shame because all royalties are diverted to BLM (at least they were, I'm only assuming they still are). But it and the rest of this post go to show he's not a musician who's also an activist sometimes; his discography is saturated with activism.

🙃 Regular reminder that while Hozier has amazing love songs, he is ALSO very outspoken about his leftist politics, specifically anti-fascism, anti-racism, reproductive rights, Palestinian rights and more.

Take Me To Church and Foreigner’s God are scathing critiques of organized religion, specifically the Catholic Church.

Moment’s Silence is about oral sex but it’s ALSO about how that specific sexual act is often distorted to a show of power rather than that of love.

Nina Cried Power is an homage to various civil rights activists from the US and Ireland and a call to follow their path.

Be specifically criticizes anti-migrant policies and Trump and his ilk.

Jackboot Jump is about the global wave of fascism.

Swan Upon Leda is about reproductive rights and the violent colonial oppression of Ireland and Palestine.

Eat Your Young is about the ruinous way the 1%/capitalism prioritizes short-term profit over everything else to the detriment of the youth/99%.

Butchered Tongue is about Irish and other indigenous languages being suppressed and erased by imperial powers.

If any of the above surprised you, please, please delve deeper into Hozier’s music, you’re missing such an important part of his work.

[darkautomaton]

Best Practices in Corporate Risk Management in Hong Kong

With an increasingly complex legal, regulatory, economic, and technological environment, effectively managing organizational risks is critical for companies striving towards sustainable growth in Hong Kong. By taking a strategic approach to identifying key risk exposures and establishing governance policies to address vulnerabilities, both local and multinational corporations can enhance resilience.

Conduct Extensive Risk Assessments

The foundation for building robust risk oversight is to regularly conduct enterprise-wide assessments, tapping perspectives from leaders across functions on risks emerging within main business units, as well as at the corporate level. Special focus should be placed on emerging risks - from supply chain disruptions to fast-evolving cybersecurity threats. Risks posed by Hong Kong regulations and legal responsibilities around data, employment, IP, taxation and import/export controls should also be incorporated.

Appoint Centralized Risk Leadership

While business heads are accountable for risks within their domains, oversight at the core by a Chief Risk Officer and/or risk management committee provides critical independence and cross-functional coordination. Responsibilities span creating risk reporting procedures to keeping senior leadership and board directors appraised, to aligning mitigation plans with corporate strategy. Risk managers also liaise with insurance providers to secure proper coverage against financial hazards.

Implement Key Risk Policies

Findings from risk assessments should drive key policy changes, be it business continuity planning to address operational crises, instituting ethics training to reduce fraud and corruption, or enacting information handling protocols to avoid data leaks, hacking and illegal trading incidents that would undermine Hong Kong stock listings. Anti-money laundering and sanctions/export controls compliance also need special attention in Hong Kong as a gateway between China and global trade.

Monitor External Signals

In addition to internal risk monitoring, closely follow legislative or law enforcement policy shifts, as well as economic/political disruptions arising locally as well as in mainland China that stand to impact operations. Participate in trade groups and maintain contacts in agencies like InvestHK to receive critical market updates. Regular stress tests help evaluate Hong Kong megaprojects like the Greater Bay Area growth plan or One Belt One Road initiative - and gauge ensuing risk reprioritizations.

By approaching risk oversight as an integrated corporate capability monitoring both internal weaknesses and external threats, companies gain enhanced visibility into vulnerabilities which allows preemptively strengthening of operations against cascading Hong Kong/China hazards - thereby boostinglong-term performance and valuation for shareholders.

[mariacallous]

In 2024, increased adoption of biometric surveillance systems, such as the use of AI-powered facial recognition in public places and access to government services, will spur biometric identity theft and anti-surveillance innovations. Individuals aiming to steal biometric identities to commit fraud or gain access to unauthorized data will be bolstered by generative AI tools and the abundance of face and voice data posted online.

Already, voice clones are being used for scams. Take for example, Jennifer DeStefano, a mom in Arizona who heard the panicked voice of her daughter crying “Mom, these bad men have me!” after receiving a call from an unknown number. The scammer demanded money. DeStefano was eventually able to confirm that her daughter was safe. This hoax is a precursor for more sophisticated biometric scams that will target our deepest fears by using the images and sounds of our loved ones to coerce us to do the bidding of whoever deploys these tools.

In 2024, some governments will likely adopt biometric mimicry to support psychological torture. In the past, a person of interest might be told false information with little evidence to support the claims other than the words of the interrogator. Today, a person being questioned may have been arrested due to a false facial recognition match. Dark-skinned men in the United States, including Robert Williams, Michael Oliver, Nijeer Parks, and Randal Reid, have been wrongfully arrested due to facial misidentification, detained and imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. They are among a group of individuals, including the elderly, people of color, and gender nonconforming individuals, who are at higher risk of facial misidentification.

Generative AI tools also give intelligence agencies the ability to create false evidence, like a video of an alleged coconspirator confessing to a crime. Perhaps just as harrowing is that the power to create digital doppelgängers will not be limited to entities with large budgets. The availability of open-sourced generative AI systems that can produce humanlike voices and false videos will increase the circulation of revenge porn, child sexual abuse materials, and more on the dark web.

By 2024 we will have growing numbers of “excoded” communities and people—those whose life opportunities have been negatively altered by AI systems. At the Algorithmic Justice League, we have received hundreds of reports about biometric rights being compromised. In response, we will witness the rise of the faceless, those who are committed to keeping their biometric identities hidden in plain sight.

Because biometric rights will vary across the world, fashion choices will reflect regional biometric regimes. Face coverings, like those used for religious purposes or medical masks to stave off viruses, will be adopted as both fashion statement and anti-surveillance garments where permitted. In 2019, when protesters began destroying surveillance equipment while obscuring their appearance, a Hong Kong government leader banned face masks.

In 2024, we will start to see a bifurcation of mass surveillance and free-face territories, areas where you have laws like the provision in the proposed EU AI Act, which bans the use of live biometrics in public places. In such places, anti-surveillance fashion will flourish. After all, facial recognition can be used retroactively on video feeds. Parents will fight to protect the right for children to be “biometric naive”, which is to have none of their biometrics such as faceprint, voiceprint, or iris pattern scanned and stored by government agencies, schools, or religious institutions. New eyewear companies will offer lenses that distort the ability for cameras to easily capture your ocular biometric information, and pairs of glasses will come with prosthetic extensions to alter your nose and cheek shapes. 3D printing tools will be used to make at-home face prosthetics, though depending on where you are in the world, it may be outlawed. In a world where the face is the final frontier of privacy, glancing upon the unaltered visage of another will be a rare intimacy.

[cleverhottubmiracle]

Vidhura Ralapanawe thought he had more time. The climate scientist, who heads sustainability and innovation for Epic Group, a Hong Kong-based apparel sourcing business, has spent years worrying about how to keep workers protected and factories functioning as the world heats up. He never had high hopes for the industry to take the effects of rising temperatures seriously, viewing international environmental commitments as doing too little, too slowly. But he didn’t expect the consequences of inaction to hit so hard and so fast, either.The last two years have been the hottest on record. In Bangladesh and India — countries where Epic manufacturers — sizzling temperatures sickened workers and strained machinery. Schools shut, power failed and dozens died. “That was a shocker,” said Ralapanawe. “Even for me, knowing the science, I didn’t expect these kinds of massive heatwaves so fast… that really floored me.”The rest of the industry is slowly waking up to climate change as an imminent threat. Kering and LVMH are among the major fashion companies that in regulatory filings have flagged that higher temperatures could hurt access to key raw materials like leather and cotton, killing off cattle and causing crops to shrivel. Warmer winters are bad news for purveyors of puffy coats like Canada Goose and Moncler. Zara-owner Inditex said in its latest annual report that extreme weather damaged stores and disrupted sales on nine separate occasions in 2023, though the impact of these natural disasters on the group’s overall business was immaterial. It’s likely there will be more warnings buried in corporate documents this year, even as the issue is moving down many fashion executive’s agendas. Indeed, instead of focusing on how to adapt to a new, threatening climate reality, climate risk is still largely portrayed as a long-term, unquantified externality — a fancy way of saying “someone else’s problem.” That’s in contrast to more immediate concerns, like how to navigate inflation-linked demand sluggishness, growing trade tensions and delivering on quarterly growth expectations. But there is growing evidence that the world can no longer hope to avoid a climate calamity and the onset of disastrous tipping points may come much more swiftly than previously predicted. “Acting has a cost, but inaction has a higher cost,” said Anna Raffaelli, sector lead for fashion and apparel at climate consultancy The Carbon Trust. “That’s the business case.”The Climbing Costs of Climate ChangeSince 2000, climate-related disasters have caused nearly $4 trillion in economic damage, according to a recent report from consultancy BCG and the World Economic Forum’s Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders. If temperatures continue to rise at their current rate, global GDP could decline by as much as 22 percent by the end of the century. Many of fashion’s largest manufacturing hubs could face severe financial impacts much sooner. Soaring temperatures and increased flooding could curb export earnings for Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Pakistan by more than 20 percent by the end of the decade, according to an analysis by Cornell and Schroders published in 2023. The number of high heat days experienced by workers in key cities in these countries has already increased by 42 percent over the last 20 years, an analysis published by Cornell last month found. According to the International Labour Organisation, heat stress alone could reduce global work hours by 2 percent by 2030.Getting a more concrete handle on brand’s climate risks is a challenge. Companies base their analysis on a range of different scenarios, but how the climate crisis evolves is increasingly difficult to predict. Deep and diversified supply chains mean brands have so far been sheltered from the consequences when droughts and floods hit key producing regions. Meanwhile, basic data, like the temperature in factories, remains hard to come by.“If you get a leading global retailer on the phone and press them on the level and quality and confidence in the [climate risk] analysis they’ve done, I think it’s not very high,” said Jason Judd, executive director at Cornell University’s Global Labour Institute. “That’s unnerving.”Risk ManagementThings are beginning to change. Incoming European regulations are set to make brands more responsible for what happens in their supply chains. Large companies operating in the EU will need to publish information on both their environmental impact and exposure to climate risks starting this year. And climate extremes are getting harder to ignore. “Physical climate risk and the social angle of climate risk really hasn’t got enough attention from brands or investors,” said Katie Frame, active ownership manager at Schroders. The asset management company has engaged a number of its apparel holdings on their approach to climate risk and its impact on workers. It’s planning to publish a toolkit in the coming months to encourage broader investor engagement on the issue. Across the industry, thinking on the topic is “still at quite an early stage,” Frame said. Even leading companies are only starting to sketch out their approach to adapt to a new, dangerous climate reality. Kering and LVMH both point to efforts to establish more climate-secure supply chains for raw materials by supporting farming practices that protect and restore soil health and biodiversity. LVMH estimates about 5 to 10 percent of its raw materials are currently produced in line with such standards. H&M Group has established contingency plans to temporarily or permanently move production to lower-risk regions if extreme weather or water scarcity start to have an impact on production or logistics. Nike stands out as having introduced heat stress prevention requirements into its code of conduct for suppliers.But by and large, brands are still acting like climate change is a train that can be stopped, when in reality it’s already careened out of the station with no industry plan in place to prevent a disastrous collision.“People are losing their lives in extreme heat, whether in production facilities or in the field,” said Naidoo. “I don’t think there’s enough recognition of how problematic that is, especially because brands are so far removed from that reality.”For his part Ralapanawe sees developing plans to manage heat levels in Epic’s factories as a matter of urgency. It’s a difficult challenge: The trade off for keeping temperatures bearable inside may be running air conditioning systems that belch yet more planet-warming gases into the atmosphere. And these energy-guzzling cooling systems are expensive to install and run, especially when retrofitting older buildings. In an industry that operates on knife-edge margins, the core issue always comes down to who will pay to manage and address climate exposure.“Places deemed to be higher in climate risk the big brands will leave,” said Ralpanawe. At some point there will be nowhere left to go. Until then, “it’s a different way of racing to the bottom,” he said. Source link

[norajworld]

Vidhura Ralapanawe thought he had more time. The climate scientist, who heads sustainability and innovation for Epic Group, a Hong Kong-based apparel sourcing business, has spent years worrying about how to keep workers protected and factories functioning as the world heats up. He never had high hopes for the industry to take the effects of rising temperatures seriously, viewing international environmental commitments as doing too little, too slowly. But he didn’t expect the consequences of inaction to hit so hard and so fast, either.The last two years have been the hottest on record. In Bangladesh and India — countries where Epic manufacturers — sizzling temperatures sickened workers and strained machinery. Schools shut, power failed and dozens died. “That was a shocker,” said Ralapanawe. “Even for me, knowing the science, I didn’t expect these kinds of massive heatwaves so fast… that really floored me.”The rest of the industry is slowly waking up to climate change as an imminent threat. Kering and LVMH are among the major fashion companies that in regulatory filings have flagged that higher temperatures could hurt access to key raw materials like leather and cotton, killing off cattle and causing crops to shrivel. Warmer winters are bad news for purveyors of puffy coats like Canada Goose and Moncler. Zara-owner Inditex said in its latest annual report that extreme weather damaged stores and disrupted sales on nine separate occasions in 2023, though the impact of these natural disasters on the group’s overall business was immaterial. It’s likely there will be more warnings buried in corporate documents this year, even as the issue is moving down many fashion executive’s agendas. Indeed, instead of focusing on how to adapt to a new, threatening climate reality, climate risk is still largely portrayed as a long-term, unquantified externality — a fancy way of saying “someone else’s problem.” That’s in contrast to more immediate concerns, like how to navigate inflation-linked demand sluggishness, growing trade tensions and delivering on quarterly growth expectations. But there is growing evidence that the world can no longer hope to avoid a climate calamity and the onset of disastrous tipping points may come much more swiftly than previously predicted. “Acting has a cost, but inaction has a higher cost,” said Anna Raffaelli, sector lead for fashion and apparel at climate consultancy The Carbon Trust. “That’s the business case.”The Climbing Costs of Climate ChangeSince 2000, climate-related disasters have caused nearly $4 trillion in economic damage, according to a recent report from consultancy BCG and the World Economic Forum’s Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders. If temperatures continue to rise at their current rate, global GDP could decline by as much as 22 percent by the end of the century. Many of fashion’s largest manufacturing hubs could face severe financial impacts much sooner. Soaring temperatures and increased flooding could curb export earnings for Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Pakistan by more than 20 percent by the end of the decade, according to an analysis by Cornell and Schroders published in 2023. The number of high heat days experienced by workers in key cities in these countries has already increased by 42 percent over the last 20 years, an analysis published by Cornell last month found. According to the International Labour Organisation, heat stress alone could reduce global work hours by 2 percent by 2030.Getting a more concrete handle on brand’s climate risks is a challenge. Companies base their analysis on a range of different scenarios, but how the climate crisis evolves is increasingly difficult to predict. Deep and diversified supply chains mean brands have so far been sheltered from the consequences when droughts and floods hit key producing regions. Meanwhile, basic data, like the temperature in factories, remains hard to come by.“If you get a leading global retailer on the phone and press them on the level and quality and confidence in the [climate risk] analysis they’ve done, I think it’s not very high,” said Jason Judd, executive director at Cornell University’s Global Labour Institute. “That’s unnerving.”Risk ManagementThings are beginning to change. Incoming European regulations are set to make brands more responsible for what happens in their supply chains. Large companies operating in the EU will need to publish information on both their environmental impact and exposure to climate risks starting this year. And climate extremes are getting harder to ignore. “Physical climate risk and the social angle of climate risk really hasn’t got enough attention from brands or investors,” said Katie Frame, active ownership manager at Schroders. The asset management company has engaged a number of its apparel holdings on their approach to climate risk and its impact on workers. It’s planning to publish a toolkit in the coming months to encourage broader investor engagement on the issue. Across the industry, thinking on the topic is “still at quite an early stage,” Frame said. Even leading companies are only starting to sketch out their approach to adapt to a new, dangerous climate reality. Kering and LVMH both point to efforts to establish more climate-secure supply chains for raw materials by supporting farming practices that protect and restore soil health and biodiversity. LVMH estimates about 5 to 10 percent of its raw materials are currently produced in line with such standards. H&M Group has established contingency plans to temporarily or permanently move production to lower-risk regions if extreme weather or water scarcity start to have an impact on production or logistics. Nike stands out as having introduced heat stress prevention requirements into its code of conduct for suppliers.But by and large, brands are still acting like climate change is a train that can be stopped, when in reality it’s already careened out of the station with no industry plan in place to prevent a disastrous collision.“People are losing their lives in extreme heat, whether in production facilities or in the field,” said Naidoo. “I don’t think there’s enough recognition of how problematic that is, especially because brands are so far removed from that reality.”For his part Ralapanawe sees developing plans to manage heat levels in Epic’s factories as a matter of urgency. It’s a difficult challenge: The trade off for keeping temperatures bearable inside may be running air conditioning systems that belch yet more planet-warming gases into the atmosphere. And these energy-guzzling cooling systems are expensive to install and run, especially when retrofitting older buildings. In an industry that operates on knife-edge margins, the core issue always comes down to who will pay to manage and address climate exposure.“Places deemed to be higher in climate risk the big brands will leave,” said Ralpanawe. At some point there will be nowhere left to go. Until then, “it’s a different way of racing to the bottom,” he said. Source link

[ellajme0]

Vidhura Ralapanawe thought he had more time. The climate scientist, who heads sustainability and innovation for Epic Group, a Hong Kong-based apparel sourcing business, has spent years worrying about how to keep workers protected and factories functioning as the world heats up. He never had high hopes for the industry to take the effects of rising temperatures seriously, viewing international environmental commitments as doing too little, too slowly. But he didn’t expect the consequences of inaction to hit so hard and so fast, either.The last two years have been the hottest on record. In Bangladesh and India — countries where Epic manufacturers — sizzling temperatures sickened workers and strained machinery. Schools shut, power failed and dozens died. “That was a shocker,” said Ralapanawe. “Even for me, knowing the science, I didn’t expect these kinds of massive heatwaves so fast… that really floored me.”The rest of the industry is slowly waking up to climate change as an imminent threat. Kering and LVMH are among the major fashion companies that in regulatory filings have flagged that higher temperatures could hurt access to key raw materials like leather and cotton, killing off cattle and causing crops to shrivel. Warmer winters are bad news for purveyors of puffy coats like Canada Goose and Moncler. Zara-owner Inditex said in its latest annual report that extreme weather damaged stores and disrupted sales on nine separate occasions in 2023, though the impact of these natural disasters on the group’s overall business was immaterial. It’s likely there will be more warnings buried in corporate documents this year, even as the issue is moving down many fashion executive’s agendas. Indeed, instead of focusing on how to adapt to a new, threatening climate reality, climate risk is still largely portrayed as a long-term, unquantified externality — a fancy way of saying “someone else’s problem.” That’s in contrast to more immediate concerns, like how to navigate inflation-linked demand sluggishness, growing trade tensions and delivering on quarterly growth expectations. But there is growing evidence that the world can no longer hope to avoid a climate calamity and the onset of disastrous tipping points may come much more swiftly than previously predicted. “Acting has a cost, but inaction has a higher cost,” said Anna Raffaelli, sector lead for fashion and apparel at climate consultancy The Carbon Trust. “That’s the business case.”The Climbing Costs of Climate ChangeSince 2000, climate-related disasters have caused nearly $4 trillion in economic damage, according to a recent report from consultancy BCG and the World Economic Forum’s Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders. If temperatures continue to rise at their current rate, global GDP could decline by as much as 22 percent by the end of the century. Many of fashion’s largest manufacturing hubs could face severe financial impacts much sooner. Soaring temperatures and increased flooding could curb export earnings for Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Pakistan by more than 20 percent by the end of the decade, according to an analysis by Cornell and Schroders published in 2023. The number of high heat days experienced by workers in key cities in these countries has already increased by 42 percent over the last 20 years, an analysis published by Cornell last month found. According to the International Labour Organisation, heat stress alone could reduce global work hours by 2 percent by 2030.Getting a more concrete handle on brand’s climate risks is a challenge. Companies base their analysis on a range of different scenarios, but how the climate crisis evolves is increasingly difficult to predict. Deep and diversified supply chains mean brands have so far been sheltered from the consequences when droughts and floods hit key producing regions. Meanwhile, basic data, like the temperature in factories, remains hard to come by.“If you get a leading global retailer on the phone and press them on the level and quality and confidence in the [climate risk] analysis they’ve done, I think it’s not very high,” said Jason Judd, executive director at Cornell University’s Global Labour Institute. “That’s unnerving.”Risk ManagementThings are beginning to change. Incoming European regulations are set to make brands more responsible for what happens in their supply chains. Large companies operating in the EU will need to publish information on both their environmental impact and exposure to climate risks starting this year. And climate extremes are getting harder to ignore. “Physical climate risk and the social angle of climate risk really hasn’t got enough attention from brands or investors,” said Katie Frame, active ownership manager at Schroders. The asset management company has engaged a number of its apparel holdings on their approach to climate risk and its impact on workers. It’s planning to publish a toolkit in the coming months to encourage broader investor engagement on the issue. Across the industry, thinking on the topic is “still at quite an early stage,” Frame said. Even leading companies are only starting to sketch out their approach to adapt to a new, dangerous climate reality. Kering and LVMH both point to efforts to establish more climate-secure supply chains for raw materials by supporting farming practices that protect and restore soil health and biodiversity. LVMH estimates about 5 to 10 percent of its raw materials are currently produced in line with such standards. H&M Group has established contingency plans to temporarily or permanently move production to lower-risk regions if extreme weather or water scarcity start to have an impact on production or logistics. Nike stands out as having introduced heat stress prevention requirements into its code of conduct for suppliers.But by and large, brands are still acting like climate change is a train that can be stopped, when in reality it’s already careened out of the station with no industry plan in place to prevent a disastrous collision.“People are losing their lives in extreme heat, whether in production facilities or in the field,” said Naidoo. “I don’t think there’s enough recognition of how problematic that is, especially because brands are so far removed from that reality.”For his part Ralapanawe sees developing plans to manage heat levels in Epic’s factories as a matter of urgency. It’s a difficult challenge: The trade off for keeping temperatures bearable inside may be running air conditioning systems that belch yet more planet-warming gases into the atmosphere. And these energy-guzzling cooling systems are expensive to install and run, especially when retrofitting older buildings. In an industry that operates on knife-edge margins, the core issue always comes down to who will pay to manage and address climate exposure.“Places deemed to be higher in climate risk the big brands will leave,” said Ralpanawe. At some point there will be nowhere left to go. Until then, “it’s a different way of racing to the bottom,” he said. Source link

[chilimili212]

Vidhura Ralapanawe thought he had more time. The climate scientist, who heads sustainability and innovation for Epic Group, a Hong Kong-based apparel sourcing business, has spent years worrying about how to keep workers protected and factories functioning as the world heats up. He never had high hopes for the industry to take the effects of rising temperatures seriously, viewing international environmental commitments as doing too little, too slowly. But he didn’t expect the consequences of inaction to hit so hard and so fast, either.The last two years have been the hottest on record. In Bangladesh and India — countries where Epic manufacturers — sizzling temperatures sickened workers and strained machinery. Schools shut, power failed and dozens died. “That was a shocker,” said Ralapanawe. “Even for me, knowing the science, I didn’t expect these kinds of massive heatwaves so fast… that really floored me.”The rest of the industry is slowly waking up to climate change as an imminent threat. Kering and LVMH are among the major fashion companies that in regulatory filings have flagged that higher temperatures could hurt access to key raw materials like leather and cotton, killing off cattle and causing crops to shrivel. Warmer winters are bad news for purveyors of puffy coats like Canada Goose and Moncler. Zara-owner Inditex said in its latest annual report that extreme weather damaged stores and disrupted sales on nine separate occasions in 2023, though the impact of these natural disasters on the group’s overall business was immaterial. It’s likely there will be more warnings buried in corporate documents this year, even as the issue is moving down many fashion executive’s agendas. Indeed, instead of focusing on how to adapt to a new, threatening climate reality, climate risk is still largely portrayed as a long-term, unquantified externality — a fancy way of saying “someone else’s problem.” That’s in contrast to more immediate concerns, like how to navigate inflation-linked demand sluggishness, growing trade tensions and delivering on quarterly growth expectations. But there is growing evidence that the world can no longer hope to avoid a climate calamity and the onset of disastrous tipping points may come much more swiftly than previously predicted. “Acting has a cost, but inaction has a higher cost,” said Anna Raffaelli, sector lead for fashion and apparel at climate consultancy The Carbon Trust. “That’s the business case.”The Climbing Costs of Climate ChangeSince 2000, climate-related disasters have caused nearly $4 trillion in economic damage, according to a recent report from consultancy BCG and the World Economic Forum’s Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders. If temperatures continue to rise at their current rate, global GDP could decline by as much as 22 percent by the end of the century. Many of fashion’s largest manufacturing hubs could face severe financial impacts much sooner. Soaring temperatures and increased flooding could curb export earnings for Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Pakistan by more than 20 percent by the end of the decade, according to an analysis by Cornell and Schroders published in 2023. The number of high heat days experienced by workers in key cities in these countries has already increased by 42 percent over the last 20 years, an analysis published by Cornell last month found. According to the International Labour Organisation, heat stress alone could reduce global work hours by 2 percent by 2030.Getting a more concrete handle on brand’s climate risks is a challenge. Companies base their analysis on a range of different scenarios, but how the climate crisis evolves is increasingly difficult to predict. Deep and diversified supply chains mean brands have so far been sheltered from the consequences when droughts and floods hit key producing regions. Meanwhile, basic data, like the temperature in factories, remains hard to come by.“If you get a leading global retailer on the phone and press them on the level and quality and confidence in the [climate risk] analysis they’ve done, I think it’s not very high,” said Jason Judd, executive director at Cornell University’s Global Labour Institute. “That’s unnerving.”Risk ManagementThings are beginning to change. Incoming European regulations are set to make brands more responsible for what happens in their supply chains. Large companies operating in the EU will need to publish information on both their environmental impact and exposure to climate risks starting this year. And climate extremes are getting harder to ignore. “Physical climate risk and the social angle of climate risk really hasn’t got enough attention from brands or investors,” said Katie Frame, active ownership manager at Schroders. The asset management company has engaged a number of its apparel holdings on their approach to climate risk and its impact on workers. It’s planning to publish a toolkit in the coming months to encourage broader investor engagement on the issue. Across the industry, thinking on the topic is “still at quite an early stage,” Frame said. Even leading companies are only starting to sketch out their approach to adapt to a new, dangerous climate reality. Kering and LVMH both point to efforts to establish more climate-secure supply chains for raw materials by supporting farming practices that protect and restore soil health and biodiversity. LVMH estimates about 5 to 10 percent of its raw materials are currently produced in line with such standards. H&M Group has established contingency plans to temporarily or permanently move production to lower-risk regions if extreme weather or water scarcity start to have an impact on production or logistics. Nike stands out as having introduced heat stress prevention requirements into its code of conduct for suppliers.But by and large, brands are still acting like climate change is a train that can be stopped, when in reality it’s already careened out of the station with no industry plan in place to prevent a disastrous collision.“People are losing their lives in extreme heat, whether in production facilities or in the field,” said Naidoo. “I don’t think there’s enough recognition of how problematic that is, especially because brands are so far removed from that reality.”For his part Ralapanawe sees developing plans to manage heat levels in Epic’s factories as a matter of urgency. It’s a difficult challenge: The trade off for keeping temperatures bearable inside may be running air conditioning systems that belch yet more planet-warming gases into the atmosphere. And these energy-guzzling cooling systems are expensive to install and run, especially when retrofitting older buildings. In an industry that operates on knife-edge margins, the core issue always comes down to who will pay to manage and address climate exposure.“Places deemed to be higher in climate risk the big brands will leave,” said Ralpanawe. At some point there will be nowhere left to go. Until then, “it’s a different way of racing to the bottom,” he said. Source link