Few industries depend more on natural resources than food, beverage and agriculture.
With tightening environmental regulation and mounting public concern over pollution and biodiversity loss, there’s an increasing focus on how the sector uses resources, from land and animals to water.
As well as the risks from chemical processes, refrigerants and fuel storage, natural products such as milk can cause serious damage if they leak in large quantities.
Examples of incidents that have caused harm include:
- A fire at a dairy plant that caused melted butter to flow into a nearby river, resulting in large-scale biodiversity loss.
- Over-abstraction of groundwater by a brewery that caused the groundwater levels to drop, killing plants and degrading soil in an environmentally protected area.
- Toxic wastewater from a chicken processing plant that caused an algal bloom, which killed fish and flora in local rivers.
Our environmental expertise
WTW has strong experience in environmental insurance with a specialist environmental practice.
Our team includes expertise in environmental management and consultancy, broking and underwriting.
We can help you manage and mitigate your risks, create bespoke wordings and design insurance programs that match your risk and exposure profile.