Recursion Joins Consortium in Climate Risk Statement

On January 19, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) issued a Request for Information (RFI) on “Climate and Natural Disaster Risk Management at the Regulated Entities”[1]. This RFI was issued as “A growing body of research is studying the risks that climate change and natural disasters pose to the stability of the economy, the financial system, the national housing finance markets, and FHFA’s regulated entities.” There are two main policy topics in which FHFA is seeking comment:

  1. Identifying and Assessing Climate and Natural Disaster Risk

• This includes the identification of “methodologies, datasets, variables, assumptions, future climate scenarios, and measurement tools are used to measure and monitor climate risk to the national housing finance markets”.​

  2. Enhancing FHFA’s Supervisory and Regulatory Framework

• This includes the question “Are there policies the regulated entities could pursue to mitigate such adverse effects for minority borrowers exposed to climate and natural disaster risk?”

Recursion joined with a consortium of experts in this field, including the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Roosevelt Institute, the Carbon-Free Buildings Program and the Vulnerable Communities Initiative Inc that submitted a comment letter to FHFA Director Calabria on April 19[2].

This letter spelled out a statement of principles that reflect Recursion’s mission of building “Data Democracy”, including:

• Decision making must be data-driven. High-quality data is a prerequisite for any accurate analysis, projection, and decision. This includes not only quantitative statistics but also qualitative data, such as case studies, interviews and lessons learned that capture the meaning and context of information.
• Make data free, transparent, and accessible. Government, Enterprise and FHLBank-produced data are public goods and they create maximized economic benefits when they are open. Equal access to high-quality climate-risk data helps level the playing field for the average consumer and local communities to make better decisions. Determine the specifications for disclosures of loan-level mortgage data (e.g. geography, demographics, underwriting) needed to align with climate-risk data to ensure that the information needed to accomplish climate policy goals is available. Researchers can provide valuable feedback to help maintain the dataset’s quality and improve government’s data management practices.

We are pleased to work with such distinguished colleagues on this important topic.

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[1] https://www.fhfa.gov/Media/PublicAffairs/Documents/Climate-and-Natural-Disaster-RFI.pdf
[2] Response to FHFA RFI by: Recursion, Lincoln Insititute of Land Policy, Roosevelt Institite etc​