Poseidon Principles for Marine Insurance (PPMI)

Swiss Re is one of the co-founders of the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA) (see “Extending our risk intelligence” chapter, “Decarbonising our business model” ), a group of global re/insurers who are all committed to achieve net-zero emissions in their underwriting portfolios by 2050.

We are also one of six leading marine insurers who have helped develop the Poseidon Principles for Marine Insurance (PPMI). Swiss Re Corporate Solutions acted as a co-leading strategic partner, providing the chair of the PPMI Association’s drafting committee, and is now heading its steering committee. Launched in late 2021, the PPMI provide a framework for marine insurers to quantitatively assess and disclose the climate alignment of their underwriting portfolios. It thus makes marine insurance the first line of business to establish a sector-specific methodology to support the ambition of the NZIA.

The shipping industry is not part of the Paris Agreement and is considered a “hard-to-abate” sector, accounting for 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The disclosure framework introduced by the PPMI will enable the sector to create transparency on its emissions and credibly measure progress towards decarbonisation targets.

Currently, signatories to the PPMI commit to one of two trajectories: cutting the emissions of their marine underwriting portfolios by 50% compared to 2008, or by 100%. A third trajectory that is fully aligned with the NZIA’s net-zero ambition will be introduced when the necessary data is available (eg from the Science Based Targets initiative).