Document summary
This report explores safety & security. Globalisation is driving the need for safety and posing new challenges from emerging markets (EM) growth to outsourcing, the food supply chain, a degrading environment, and new diseases. BAML estimates that some corporates may push the boundaries of safety in their efforts to exploit new resources. Further, the “threatscape” is changing fast, with cybersecurity attacks and critical infrastructure breakdowns being recognised as one of the top five global risks today, and cyber eclipsing terrorism as a threat. Public opinion has become more sensitive to issues of quality, security, health & safety, environmental protection and social responsibility, which has led to the proliferation, strengthening and convergence of regulation and the development of non-regulatory standards. As a result, corporates are increasingly being forced to adapt to new best practices on safety & security. Thus, this report recommends that investors focus on this shift and look for long-term solutions to the ever-growing raft of threats against people, governments, infrastructure and society as a whole.