An Interview with Henri de Castries of AXA at the BSR Conference 2015

At the BSR Conference 2015, we sat down with plenary speakers and sustainability thought leaders to discuss their thoughts on resilience in their organizations and on what defines resilient leadership.

Henri de Castries, chairman and CEO of insurance company AXA, explained that resilience is a term widely familiar to and embedded in the thought process of insurers—if there is a disruption, insurers need to come up with solutions to help their clients get back to their normal lives as quickly as possible.

De Castries also spoke with us about how climate change will affect the insurability of the world we live in. If the world becomes warmer by 2˚C, de Castries underlines, it is still insurable. But a 4˚C rise in global temperature would destroy a large part of today’s societies.

“You just have to think about the fact that sea levels would be much higher,” says de Castries. “When you know that 80 percent of the world’s wealth and 70 percent of the world’s population are living within 50 miles of the coast, you understand that this would be an absolute nightmare.”

De Castries also stressed that leaders need to “show the patience to listen and the courage to act, because there is a lot to be learned, and there is even more to be done.”

To see more videos from the BSR Conference, visit our YouTube channel.