“Do our best, …”: further measures

Reducing business travel

For a financial services company, business travel represents a major part of upstream Scope 3 CO₂ emissions. Over the years, we have taken several measures to reduce the need for business travel.

In 2014, we created a financial incentive to reduce unnecessary air travel by introducing a carbon levy. It was designed to allocate the costs of compensating flight emissions via high-quality carbon avoidance certificates to our Business Units and Group Functions in proportion to their respective share of air travel (“polluter pays” principle). That price signal was reinforced by using the same distribution key to allocate the compensation costs for non-travel-related emissions (from heating, power etc).

We continuously monitor and collect all travel data centrally. It is displayed to line mangers through a dedicated travel dashboard and to individual travellers via the expense dashboard.

All our employees across the Group have access to a dense network of state-of-the art video conferencing equipment. In 2020, we also introduced an interoperability solution that allows us to connect our video conferencing facilities with workplace-based collaboration software, which has been highly beneficial in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite these measures, Swiss Re’s air travel per employee increased between 2008 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly driven by our continued expansion in high growth markets. In 2019, we thus set a 15% reduction target for CO₂ emissions from air travel in 2020, compared to the 2018 level. Taking into account the strong increase in alternative collaboration methods resulting from the pandemic, we have increased this reduction target to 30% for 2021 and to at least 50% for 2022 (both compared to the 2018 level).

These CO₂ targets are supported by our Carbon Steering Levy introduced in 2021 (see Introducing our Carbon Steering Levy). At a triple-digit value in US dollars per tonne of CO₂, the new levy impacts travel budgets much more strongly than the old single-digit flight tax. Furthermore, the levy is now transparently displayed as an additional cost in the Group’s travel tool – creating an incentive to reconsider whether a particular business trip is really necessary.

In 2021, CO₂ emissions from air travel decreased by 93% compared to the 2018 level. However, this was largely due to travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using 100% green power

In 2020, Swiss Re sourced 100% of its power use from renewable sources for the first time. We thus achieved the commitment we made under the Climate Group’s RE100 initiative, which we co-founded together with IKEA in 2014.

Applying our internal standard for green power sourcing, we are constantly looking for opportunities to bring new renewable assets onto the grid (known as “additionality”), preferably through:

• Direct investments in our own solar plants – past investments include Armonk (US), Swiss Re Next in Zurich (Switzerland), Bangalore (India) and Folkestone (UK)
• Indirect investments via long-term virtual power purchase agreements from newly built plants

Where neither option is feasible, we source high-quality renewable energy certificates (eg naturemade star in Switzerland).

In 2021, we had in place:

• Solar photovoltaic installations at our offices in Armonk, Folkestone and Zurich
• A power purchase agreement with the landlord at our Bangalore office to obtain power from the solar photovoltaic installation on the roof of the building
• A virtual power purchase agreement with the Green River wind farm in Illinois (US) covering our entire power consumption in the US and Canada

Reducing energy consumption

In parallel with our gradual switch to renewable power, we have made continuous efforts to lower the actual amount of energy consumed per employee, ie to reduce our energy intensity (measured as kWh/FTE). Our target is to reduce our energy intensity by 2% per year throughout the decade, with 2018 serving as the baseline.

Key measures have included moving to more energy-efficient buildings (both leased and owned, with an increasing proportion of green building labels, eg LEED) and improving office utilisation by creating more flexible and modern office environments. In 2021, we consolidated workplaces at our headquarters in Zurich and introduced various energy-efficiency measure such as smart LED lighting systems during the renovation of our offices in Folkestone (UK) and Madrid (Spain).

Between 2018 and 2021, we achieved a 40% reduction in energy use, although this figure was obviously distorted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The total reduction we achieved between 2003 (the start of our Greenhouse Neutral Programme) and 2019 (the last year before the pandemic) was 69%.

Minimising office consumables and waste

While they are less relevant for our business than other environmental impacts, we measure and strive to minimise the use of office consumables (mainly paper and water) and waste generation.

Some of the measures we have taken include: introducing reusable dishes and cutlery at major locations (also see next paragraph), “pull printing” (eliminating uncollected printouts and helping us reduce emissions from paper use by approximately 80% since 2013), Cloud-based collaboration and document management platforms.

Advancing sustainability in our gastronomy services

Food systems account for a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. Within Swiss Re’s own supply chain, our staff restaurants, pantry zones and related guest services contribute significantly to our total carbon footprint. In view of this, we have launched an initiative to further reduce emissions from our global gastronomy services and enhance the sourcing of sustainable food items.

In 2020, we carried out a review in 37 of our locations around the world and then formed a vision based on three pillars: zero waste, CO₂ emissions reductions and resilient food systems, all to be achieved by 2030.

In 2021, we started to implement the initiative by holding several internal awareness campaigns and training courses, and our locations achieved their first qualitative targets. We are currently developing a global emission measurement methodology for Swiss Re’s food consumption, which will enable us to set quantitative goals. In doing so, we are working closely with our suppliers and employees. Sustainable gastronomy was also the first climate action we focused on after the launch of Swiss Re’s new employee engagement programme NetZeroYou2.

Facilitating healthier and greener commuting

We promote low-carbon options for our employees’ daily commutes through mobility concepts at major office locations. Typically, they involve bicycle parking, shower facilities with lockers, subscriptions for public bike rental services, public transportation subsidies, last-mile shuttle services etc. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, commuting decreased significantly during the last two years.