Advancing sustainable energy solutions

The agreement reached in 2015 at the COP21 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris underscored that sustainable energy sources are essential to combat global warming. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions while, at the same time, satisfying the energy needs of a growing population will be one of the great challenges we face in the coming decades. Sustainable energy projects continue to increase in scale and complexity, as do the risks associated with them.

Innovative risk transfer solutions help to drive investment in the sector by reducing risk for investors. Building on our long-standing commitment to sustainability, we have recently intensified our renewable energy research to help our clients and the global community to develop and establish secure energy supplies for the future.

Our notable achievements in 2016:

  • Together with the World Energy Council (www.worldenergy.org) and Marsh & McLennan Companies (www.mmc.com), we published two new reports on financing resilient energy infrastructure. Following up on the report published in 2015 on extreme weather, they focus on the energy-water-food nexus and cyber threats (see special section Three partner reports on Financing resilient energy infrastructure);
  • As a founding member of the RE100 initiative (www.theRE100.org), we continued to work towards our goal of obtaining 100% of our energy from renewable sources. By increasing demand for clean power in a joint effort with our partners, we expect RE100 to make it more viable for energy companies in challenging markets to build renewable energy plants (see RE100);
  • Through Swiss Re Corporate Solutions’ partnership with Solar Impulse (www.solarimpulse.com), we supported the first round-the-world flight powered by solar energy only. The mission was successfully completed in July 2016, underscoring our commitment to cutting-edge innovations in clean energy.