Decarbonising our business model

Swiss Re supports the worldwide reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and contributes to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. We continuously review measures to assist the transition to a low-carbon economy and, formalising our commitment, in 2015 signed the Paris Pledge for Action to affirm our support for the Paris Agreement. In addition to our risk management, our efforts to fulfil the Paris Pledge for Action include the development of suitable re/insurance solutions for our clients, our Responsible Investing strategy and our own operations.

Our commitment to reach net-zero emissions

In 2019, we made a public commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 across our whole business by signing the UN Global Compact Business Ambition for 1.5°C. To accelerate progress towards this ambitious goal in our underwriting, we co-founded the UN-convened Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA) in 2021 (see below).

Our Thermal Coal Policy

Based on our Thermal Coal Policy introduced in mid-2018, we do not provide re/insurance to businesses with more than 30% exposure to thermal coal utilities or mining. For transactions located in low- and middle-income countries that derive more than 70% of electricity from coal, existing power plants (ie operational before 2018) may continue to be covered until 2025 if there is evidence that the insured is implementing an effective emission reduction strategy.

In 2020, we developed an exit strategy for thermal coal in our treaty business (through which we reinsure whole portfolios of direct insurers). It sets specific coal exposure thresholds for treaties across our property, engineering, casualty, credit and surety, and marine cargo lines of business, effective from 2023. These thresholds will then be gradually reduced until our thermal coal-related business has been fully phased out – by 2030 in OECD countries and by 2040 in the rest of the world.

Enhanced Oil and Gas Policy

Through our Oil and Gas Policy we have committed to shifting away from the most carbon-intensive oil and gas production.

In 2021, we stopped providing individual insurance covers for those oil and gas companies that are responsible for the world’s 5% most carbon-intensive oil and gas production. From July 2023, we will no longer provide individual insurance covers for those oil and gas companies that are responsible for the world’s 10% most carbon-intensive oil and gas production.

We recently further strengthened our Oil and Gas Policy based on our own net-zero commitments and in response to new scientific findings published by the International Energy Agency (IEA). We will no longer re/insure or directly invest in new oil and gas field projects that will receive the go-ahead (in the form of a final investment decision) from their parent companies after 2022. Exceptions will apply to projects of companies aligned with net-zero emissions by 2050, as defined by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) or a comparable third-party assessment.

As most of the global expansion of oil and gas exploration and production is insured via company-wide property insurance policies, we have taken measures to align these portfolios (in both direct insurance and facultative reinsurance) with our commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050.

We will partner with our oil and gas clients (up-, mid- and downstream) on the transition to net-zero emissions and will align our re/insurance support to companies according to the below ambitions. These ambitions will be translated into net-zero alignment targets once guidance based on science-based target setting becomes available.

• By 2025, half of our overall oil and gas premiums are to come from companies that are aligned with net zero by 2050, as per SBTi or a comparable, credible third-party assessment.
• By 2030, Swiss Re's oil and gas re/insurance portfolios are to contain only companies that are aligned with net zero by 2050, also as per SBTi or a comparable, credible third-party assessment.

Furthermore, from July 2022 Swiss Re will no longer re/insure or invest in companies and projects with more than 10% of their production located in the Arctic AMAP region (Norwegian production is exempt).

We are also developing an approach for oil and gas in treaty reinsurance, to be finalised by 2023.

Carbon steering mechanism

Our Thermal Coal Policy and enhanced Oil and Gas Policy are initial steps towards the development of a comprehensive carbon risk steering mechanism. This is needed to measure our carbon intensity and associated risks embedded in our re/insurance business. In 2020, we helped complete a project with peers via the CRO Forum to develop a carbon footprinting methodology for the quantification of these exposures.

In 2021, we sought to further refine the assessment of the carbon footprint of our direct insurance business by applying the methodology developed through the project with the CRO Forum. This effort once again brought to light that there are significant limitations to data availability at present and that carbon footprint estimates for re/insurance underwriting are thus marked by considerable uncertainty.

Keeping these uncertainties in mind, we have estimated the weighted average carbon intensity of our direct insurance portfolio for 2021 at 120 tonnes of CO2 equivalents per million USD of revenue, unchanged from the previous year. We do not regard the fluctuations observed as statistically significant.

We consider it important that the challenges and significant uncertainties currently hampering the measurement of underwriting carbon footprints are adequately addressed. This is why as a co-founder of the NZIA, we took the chair of its working group tasked with developing an Insured Emissions Standard. The working group has joined the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF), a global initiative with over 230 member organisations at the time of writing (March 2022).

We expect that the adoption of the PCAF emissions standard will improve the data quality underlying the measurement of carbon footprints and facilitate benchmarking – for Swiss Re and the entire re/insurance industry.