Risk Management
Climate risk is a subset of environmental risk that encompasses the risk of financial loss or reputational damage that results from the physical and transition impacts of climate change, which may adversely impact our operations, or the operations of our clients.
• Transition to a lower-carbon economy may entail extensive policy, legal, technology, and market changes to address mitigation and adaptation requirements related to climate change. Depending on the nature, speed, and focus of these changes, transition risks may pose varying levels of financial and reputation risk to organizations over time. • Physical risks related to climate change can be event-driven or due to longer-term shifts in climate patterns. Physical risks may have financial implications for organizations, such as direct damage to assets and indirect impacts from supply chain disruption. We have limited direct physical risk exposure based on our modest physical footprint through banking centres and corporate office space across Canada. We regularly monitor, assess and revise our business continuity approach and response to ensure our ability to maintain critical operations through periods of business disruption. We have minimal indirect physical and transition risk exposure through our current lending activities, although we expect this risk will evolve and emerge over time. Our lending portfolio diversification by geography and industry has increased significantly over the past several years, which mitigates the risk of over-exposure to any one sector or region that might be exposed to climate-related risks. We continue to advance our capabilities and approach to climate-related risk management. In 2022, we updated our Risk Management framework to incorporate social and environmental risk into our risk universe and climate-related risk was added to our Risk Register to facilitate the assessment of the level of inherent risk, control effectiveness and residual risk. We are committed to continue to advance our risk management practises to support identification, management, and reporting of climate-related risks and integration of climate-related risks into our policies and procedures.
Metrics and Targets
As we continue our phased adoption of the TCFD recommendations, we are committed to identify, measure, and disclose climate-related metrics and targets, beginning with a focus on our greenhouse gas emissions across our operational footprint. We are also committed to manage our operational footprint through practices targeted to benchmark and reduce the amount of energy we consume, increase materials recovered and recycled, and manage ecological maintenance products. As we expand our banking centre footprint and upgrade existing locations, we maintain a focus on sustainability and opportunities to reduce our environmental impact.
Progress on our approach to climate change, including the development of related metrics and targets, is further discussed within our Sustainability Report located on our website at www.cwb.com/sustainability-reports.
REPUTATION RISK
Reputation risk is the risk of loss or harm to our brand or reputation. It may arise even if other operational risks are effectively managed and includes the risk arising from non-conformance with ethical standards.
Damage to our reputation and negative public perception could be an outcome of operational risk events that result from breakdowns in internal processes, deficient systems, actual or alleged misconduct of employees or external partners representing non-conformance with our ethical standards, or external events. Significant reputation risk events typically lead to questions about business ethics and integrity, competence, corporate governance practices, quality and accuracy of financial reporting disclosures, or quality of products and service. Negative public opinion could adversely affect our ability to attract and retain clients and/or employees and could expose us to litigation and/or regulatory action. We manage risks to our reputation by considering the potential reputational impact of all business activities, strategic plans, transactions and initiatives, product and service offerings, as well as day-to-day decision-making and conduct. Responsibility for managing the impact of operational (and other) risks on our reputation extends to all of our teams, including senior management and the Board of Directors. All directors, officers and employees have a responsibility to conduct their activities in accordance with our personal code of conduct policies, in a manner that minimizes operational risks and aligns to our three lines of defence framework. We actively promote a culture that encourages employees to raise concerns and supports them in doing so.
OTHER RISK FACTORS
In addition to the risks described above, other risk factors may adversely affect our businesses and financial results.
LEVEL OF COMPETITION
Our performance is impacted by competition in the markets in which we operate. Client retention may be influenced by many factors, including relative client experience, the relative price and attributes of products and services, changes in products and services, and actions taken by competitors.
While transitioning from the Standardized to AIRB approach for regulatory capital management will not affect the attributes or behaviour of our competitors, we expect this transition to enhance our competitiveness by enabling more risk-sensitive pricing.
ACCURACY AND COMPLETENESS OF INFORMATION ON CLIENTS AND COUNTERPARTIES We depend on the accuracy and completeness of information about clients and counterparties. In deciding whether to extend credit or enter into other transactions with clients and counterparties, we may rely on information furnished by them, including financial statements, appraisals, external credit ratings and other financial information. We may also rely on the representations of clients and counterparties as to the accuracy and completeness of that information and, with respect to financial statements, on the reports of auditors. Our financial condition and earnings could be negatively impacted to the extent it relies on financial statements that do not comply with standard accounting practices, that are materially misleading, or that do not fairly present, in all material respects, the financial condition and results of operations of the customer or counterparties.
CWB Financial Group 2022 Annual Report | 59
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