Dr Sophie Taysom

Dr Sophie Taysom is the founder and CEO of Keyah Consulting, a London-based climate and sustainability advisory firm specialising in real estate professional services. She holds a PhD, contributes regularly to the Financial Times Sustainable Views platform, and founded the Sustainable Real Estate LinkedIn group, now approaching 10,000 members. Her work focuses on climate risk, ESG regulation, and the intersection of insurance and asset valuation across UK and European markets.

Dr Sophie Taysom, Keyah CEO — cover image for insurance, climate risk and housing

Urban climate resilience has a framing problem — and it’s costing cities

Adaptation & Resilience, News /

Most conversations about climate resilience in cities start in the wrong place. They begin with planning — land use, zoning, infrastructure design, flood modelling. These things matter. But treating resilience as primarily a planning problem misses where the real pressure is building. The pressure is financial. When insurers reprice flood risk in a postcode, that’s

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Dr Sophie Taysom, Keyah CEO — cover image for closing the gap on climate risk across real assets and taking action.

The market knows it’s running out of time. It just doesn’t know what to do next.

Real Estate Insurance, Research, Sustainable Real Estate /

Key points Keyah’s market research with real estate professionals reveals a sector that understands the stakes and is still stuck. Real estate professionals are not, for the most part, unaware of what climate risk means for their portfolios. What Keyah’s recent market research found, across conversations with boards, asset managers, and advisory professionals, is something

The market knows it’s running out of time. It just doesn’t know what to do next. Read More »

Dr Sophie Taysom, Keyah CEO — cover image for 'Uninsurable Britain?'

Uninsurable Britain? What Australia, New Zealand, and California can teach us

Adaptation & Resilience, News, Real Estate Insurance, Sustainable Real Estate /

Key points I had the opportunity to present at a Parliamentary roundtable chaired by George Freeman MP at Portcullis House in Westminster. The roundtable is being used to inform Freeman’s Inland Flooding Bill, a piece of proposed legislation designed to improve accountability for flood risk, help residents better prepare, and tighten planning rules. Alongside me

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Dr Sophie Taysom, Keyah CEO — cover image for - The Valuation Gap: Board Questions for Climate Risk Assessment in Real Estate - Keyah Consulting

The Valuation Gap: Board Questions for Climate Risk Assessment in Real Estate

Adaptation & Resilience, Real Estate Insurance, Sustainable Real Estate /

Key points Real estate portfolios face a fundamental valuation problem: asset prices do not yet fully reflect climate risk. For boards overseeing REITs, pension funds, and institutional portfolios, this mispricing represents fiduciary risk. Valuations anchored to historical data understate future impacts. The following questions provide a framework for assessing whether climate risk is properly reflected

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Dr Sophie Taysom, Keyah CEO — cover image for - The Adaptation Imperative: Board Questions for Climate-Resilient Real Estate - Keyah Consulting

The Adaptation Imperative: Board Questions for Climate-Resilient Real Estate

Adaptation & Resilience, Real Estate Insurance, Sustainable Real Estate /

Key points Climate risk is no longer a future concern for real estate portfolios, it’s  a present valuation problem, an insurance crisis, and a fiduciary challenge. Boards overseeing REITs, pension fund real estate holdings, and institutional portfolios face a stark reality: the gap between climate risk and asset pricing is widening. A landmark survey of

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Dr Sophie Taysom, Keyah CEO — cover image for Key Principles of Effective Stakeholder Engagement - Keyah Consulting

Key Principles of Effective Stakeholder Engagement in Real Estate

Stakeholder engagement, Sustainable Real Estate /

Key points I’ve seen the good and the bad of stakeholder engagement in real estate sustainability – from occupiers becoming genuine partners in a net zero programme, to community consultations that descended into conflict and left lasting reputational damage. Having outlined the seven benefits of effective stakeholder engagement and why it’s foundational, I want to

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Dr Sophie Taysom, Keyah CEO — cover image for - 7 Benefits of Stakeholder Engagement: Why it’s the Foundation of Sustainable Real Estate - Keyah Consulting

7 Benefits of Stakeholder Engagement: Why it’s the Foundation of Sustainable Real Estate

Stakeholder engagement, Sustainable Real Estate /

Key points How many times have you developed a sustainability strategy for your portfolio, only to find that occupiers aren’t on board, investors are asking questions you can’t answer, or local communities are pushing back on a scheme you thought was doing the right thing? If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. In real estate,

7 Benefits of Stakeholder Engagement: Why it’s the Foundation of Sustainable Real Estate Read More »

Key Trends Shaping Real Assets Investment in 2025: Sustainability at an Inflection Point - Keyah Consulting

Key Trends Shaping Investments in 2025: Real Estate Sustainability at an Inflection Point

Real Estate Insurance, Sustainable Real Estate /

Key points As 2025 comes to a close, real estate investors face a fundamentally transformed landscape where topics including adaptation, resilience, and linked to this, insurance, are no longer peripheral but central to investment strategy, risk management, and value creation. Here are the critical trends reshaping our sector: 1. Divergent Regulatory Trajectories Creating Strategic Complexity

Key Trends Shaping Investments in 2025: Real Estate Sustainability at an Inflection Point Read More »

Climate Risk, Sustainability, Insurance | Real Assets

Why Smart Businesses Are Doubling Down on Sustainability and ESG (While Others Walk Away)

Strategy, Sustainable Real Estate /

Key points Here’s what nobody’s talking about: while headlines shout about investors retreating from green building commitments and ESG mandates, the savviest players in real estate are quietly using this moment to pull ahead. Why? Because they understand something fundamental – sustainable real estate isn’t just about optics, it’s about asset survival. The real story

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The EU Sustainability Framework: What the Omnibus Simplification Actually Means for Real Estate - Keyah Consulting

The EU Sustainability Framework: What the Omnibus Simplification Actually Means for Real Estate

News, Sustainable Real Estate /

“Simplification” sounds promising—until you’re the one trying to implement it. Last week at EPRA’s annual Sustainability Summit, Dr Taysom moderated a panel that cut through the noise around the European Union’s Omnibus Simplification Package (CSRD) and changes to the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulations (SFDR). The timing couldn’t have been more relevant, landing the same day

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Looking beyond an insurance fix: Flood risk across Great Britain - Keyah Consulting

Looking beyond an insurance fix: Flood risk across Great Britain

Real Estate Insurance, Stakeholder engagement, Sustainable Real Estate /

Key points The Guardian headline is blunt, Towns may have to be abandoned due to floods with millions more homes in Great Britain at risk. Insurers are sounding the alarm. Aviva’s report on which the article is based is clear on where we could be by 2050: The result is that homes and communities could

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Image overlooking the ocean with a storm on the horizon.

A decade on from Mark Carney’s ‘Tragedy of the Horizon’ lecture at Lloyds

Real Estate Insurance /

Ten years ago, Mark Carney, the then Governor of the Bank of England, warned us about the Tragedy of the Horizon. He made clear that changes in the climate brings ‘profound implications’ for insurers, our financial institutions, and the wider economy. But when it comes to insurance, many at the household level are living in

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