Sustainability Topics: goals and progress

• For linked targets and progress, see Extending our risk intelligence , Being a responsible investor , and Driving sustainable operations.

• For our Climate Action Plan see also our climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD).

• USD 3.9 billion in premiums for natural catastrophe covers exceeding losses of USD 20 million, equivalent to approximately 22% of P&C reinsurance premiums (see Focus: Natural catastrophes and climate change).

• Leveraged our proprietary flood models to launch QuickFlood, a simplified flood insurance product for lower-risk flood zones in the US (see Natural catastrophe).

• Leveraged our proprietary climate models to assess corporate clients’ exposures to physical climate risks via our Climate Risk Solutions (see Natural catastrophe).

• More than 8 870 solar and wind farms for which re/insurance cover was written in 2021, avoiding 29 million tonnes of CO2 once facilities are operational (see Renewables and energy transition).

• Wrote re/insurance cover for more than 290 other renewable energy facilities, including hydropower, geothermal, marine/tidal and biomass plants in 2021, avoiding 2 million tonnes of CO2 emissions once facilities are operational.

• Overall, wrote re/insurance for more than 9 100 renewable energy generation facilities, which will help to avoid around 31 million tonnes of CO2 emissions (see TCFD).

• By 2021, the Tripartite had formed 16 country teams, six of which are co-led by Swiss Re. Two country projects led by other IDF members are in the implementation phase. Swiss Re and ten other industry members contribute by providing risk modelling expertise (see Insurance Development Forum).

• Swiss Re Group CEO Christian Mumenthaler has co-chaired the WEF Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders since 2020 and represented the Alliance at COP26 (see Engaging in partnership on climate change).

• Co-led development of the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance’s (AOA) inaugural 2025 Target Setting Protocol, which was released in 2021 and supports the setting of climate targets (see How we engage).

• Co-led development of the AOA’s first progress report in 2021 (see How we engage).

• Co-founded Net-Zero Insurance Alliance, a group of global re/insurers who are committed to achieve net-zero emissions in their underwriting portfolios by 2050 (see Decarbonising our business model).

• Launched partnership with Climeworks by signing ten-year purchase agreement for direct air capture and storage of carbon dioxide (see Focus: Partnering with Climeworks).

Completed a number of innovative transactions, such as:

• Providing crop insurance protection to 6 million farmers in West Bengal (Agriculture).

• Developed approximately 20 agricultural insurance products in Guangdong via our Agriculture Insurance Risk Monitoring Platform (AIRMP) (Agriculture).

• Brought life and health insurance protection to more than 397 700 beneficiaries through our partnership with Women’s World Banking by the end of 2021 (Our commitments).

Completed a number of innovative transactions on providing access and affordability. For example:

• We facilitated access to COVID-19 vaccines for 21 countries by providing insurance protection against the risk of non-payment (Life and health).

• Piloted a life insurance product for documented immigrants in the US to cover funeral and travel costs if an insured loved one back home passes away (Life and health).

• Launched the Sustainability Initiative within Swiss Re Reinsurance, focusing on the three A’s: accessibility, affordability and availability (Sustainability in Life & Health).

• To make insurance more accessible and affordable, we aim to optimise the insurance value chain through automation. Swiss Re is running automated underwriting solutions for clients on all continents. Through a sample of these clients, there were 6.6 million potential customers (lives) assessed during 2021. 12% of those lives disclosed health impairments, amounting to 770 000 people. In total, 5.3 million potential customers (lives) were offered protection automatically, without further investigation.

Infrastructure transactions include:

• Provided cover for the construction of a water treatment plant and its pipe network in Sri Lanka (Infrastructure).

• Construction cover of the Südlink energy transmission line, the largest renewable energy infrastructure project currently being built in Germany (Infrastructure).

• Reinsured 186 million life & health policies and paid out USD 14 billion in claims and annuity. This equates to around 237 million family members who were supported by reinsurance policies (Sustainability in Life & Health).

• Further aligned our activities to the SDGs, both in re/insurance and our investments, to better understand our societal impact (UN Sustainable Development Goals and Inclusion).

Examples of transactions include:

• Increased the speed at which we are able to estimate losses after flood events via the Swiss Re Rapid Damage Assessment (RDA) capability (Natural catastrophe).

• iptiQ entered into a collaboration with Square Health, wherein UK customers receive digital health benefits (Life and health).

• Piloted an affordable accident insurance for food delivery “gig economy” drivers (Life and health).

• Received the Digital Trust Label, the world’s first label for digital responsibility launched by the Swiss Digital Initiative (Digital responsibility).

• Continued our engagement in discussions with peers, regulators, academics and trade associations on how to embrace the opportunities offered by digitalisation in a responsible manner (Digital responsibility).

• Launched enhanced ESG Risk Framework, including new Governance Policy and revised Agriculture, Forestry and Food Policy (see Our ESG Risk Framework).

• Further quantified our ESG Risk assessments by adding 129 companies and/or projects to our ESG risk watchlist. At year-end 2021, the ESG Risk watchlist contained a total of 2358 companies and 300 projects (see Our ESG Risk Framework).

• More than 92 000 transactions screened for ESG risk exposure (see Extending our risk intelligence).

• Continued to implement our sharpened oil and gas policy and excluded support to the most carbon-intensive oil and gas companies (see Decarbonising our business model).

• Continued to apply a carbon footprinting methodology developed with the CRO Forum to our direct insurance portfolio (see Decarbonising our business model).

• Took over the lead of the “metrics” workstream in the newly launched Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA) (see Decarbonising our business model).

• Further strengthened our oil and gas policy by restricting exposure to new oil and gas projects and production in Arctic region, and by aligning our oil and gas business with the net zero by 2050 pathway (see Decarbonising our business model).

• Added highly carbon-intensive oil and gas companies to our ESG risk watchlist (see Our ESG Risk Framework).

• Continued to engage with clients in preparation for the introduction of new thermal coal thresholds in treaty business in 2023 (see Decarbonising our business model).

• Phased out 5% most carbon-intensive oil and gas companies for direct and facultative re/insurance in 2021 (see Decarbonising our business model).

• Revised Agriculture, Forestry and Food Policy (see Managing nature and biodiversity-related risks).

• Added companies to our ESG risk watchlist in agricultural and food sector (see Our ESG Risk Framework).

• New goal, to be reported next year

• Published SONAR 2021 report on emerging risks, including “Rising importance of biodiversity & ecosystem services” as a new trend, and a “Trend spotlight” on “Pricing nature in insurance” (see Emerging Risks).

• Added companies to our ESG risk watchlist related to human rights concerns (see Our ESG Risk Framework).

• Added hydro projects to our ESG risk watchlist for impact on local communities and/or impact on biodiversity (see Our ESG Risk Framework).

• Since 2018, close to 100% of our Strategic Asset Allocation considers ESG aspects (Enhancement).

• –34% reduction of the carbon intensity1 of our corporate bond and listed equity portfolio in 2021 relative to base year 2018 (TCFD).

• USD 3.9 billion invested in green, social and sustainability bonds as of 2021 (Inclusion).

• Increase of USD 100 million in social and renewable energy infrastructure also including energy efficiency loans as of 2021 (Inclusion).

• Implemented Carbon Steering Levy of USD 100/tCO2e (Our CO2NetZero Programme).

• Reduced absolute emissions from business air travel by 93% compared to 2018 base year (Our CO2NetZero Programme). Note: 2021 figures have been strongly impacted by COVID-19 and are not indicative of Swiss Re’s future environmental performance.

• Maintained 100% renewable electricity (Our CO2NetZero Programme and Sustainability Data).

• Reduced energy intensity by 14% compared to 2020 and by 40% compared to 2018 base year. Note: 2021 figures have been strongly impacted by COVID-19 and are not indicative of Swiss Re’s future environmental performance (Our CO2NetZero Programme).

• 35% of our total carbon emissions in scope compensated via carbon removal (Our CO2NetZero Programme). Note: this high share in 2021 is mainly due to the low amount of operational emissions in scope for compensation as a result of the COVID-19 impact. This figure is not indicative of Swiss Re’s future performance.
  Current emissions in scope for compensation include Scope 1, Scope 2 and part of upstream Scope 3 (business travel, energy transmission and distribution, paper, water and waste).
  Commuting is not included.

• Successfully rolled out the NetZeroYou2 programme.

• At the end of 2021, 75% of users agreed that “the NetZeroYou2 programme helps me understand my personal carbon footprint” (NetZeroYou2 programme).

• On track with >126 000 climate actions achieved and 1022 tonnes of CO2e compensated via a high-quality mix of carbon avoidance and carbon removal certificates (Our NetZeroYou2 programme).

• Successful completion of the ESG VDP pilot (Sustainability in our supply chain).

• New goal, to be reported next year.

• In 2021, our pulse survey focused on senior management: engagement of A and B bands (87%) significantly increased by 6 points since September 2020. A bands are now at 100% and B bands are at 86% (We as One Swiss Re).

• 114% female promotion ratio in 2021. We are committed to further improving this measure, as we recognise that women continue to be under-represented in our executive and senior management (We as One Swiss Re and Sustainability Data).

• Six additional countries (10 countries in total) engaged employees to respond to the self-identification questions on race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation and gender identity, with overall high consent rate (Focus: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion).

• 158 employees trained as Mental Health First Aiders in 2021 (We as One Swiss Re).

• Condensed version of the training started in 2021 directed towards (but not limited to) line managers, attended by 105 participants (We as One Swiss Re).

In addition, all line managers invited to one of 37 webinars called “burn bright”, a training to help avoid burnout and to help boost their personal resilience with over 1100 participants (We as One Swiss Re).

Leadership Pledge for Mental Health signed by Swiss Re, consisting of six actions that we pledge to take to promote better mental health in the workplace (Focus: personal resilience).

• 71% ”Leadership care” category remains at high levels in our employee surveys (2020: 69%) (Our Group People Strategy and We lead).

• 83% of employees agreed that their manager offered them the support they needed in 2021 (2020: 79%) (We lead).

86% of employees believe Swiss Re is appropriately assisting employees during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020: 87%) (Our Group People Strategy).

• Effective 1 July 2021, Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd (SRZ) has become the main direct wholly owned operating subsidiary of Swiss Re Ltd. SRZ in turn holds separate holding companies for the Business Units Reinsurance and Corporate Solutions as well as for the Division iptiQ. Under the new structure, the Group EC also assumes management responsibility for SRZ (Financial Report).

• The Board of Directors will make a formal commitment at the AGM 2022.

• For information related to sustainability governance refer to our Financial Report.

• Provided tailored training and awareness activities to nurture a “speak up” culture, enhance transparency of the compliance investigation process, and remind employees of the available reporting channels. In 2021 the #SpeakUp series secured more than 4 800 page views compared to 138 page views in 2020 (Compliance).

• New in 2021, an initiative entitled “High Performance with High Integrity Dialogues” was launched across all of Swiss Re. It empowers line managers to discuss Swiss Re’s desired behaviours, reporting channels and investigation process so that employees know how to act and what to expect when faced with a suspected misconduct situation (Compliance).

• From 2019 to 2021, we have supported around 785 000 people with improved resilience (Swiss Re Foundation; see also separate Swiss Re Foundation Report).

• 11 340 hours of support provided to our partners by 860 Swiss Re volunteers (Swiss Re Foundation; see also separate Swiss Re Foundation Report).