Advancing sustainable energy solutions

The 2015 Paris agreement on climate change (see Swiss Re’s contribution to the COP21 Climate Change Conference) 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.

Renewable energy (photo)

Decentralised power generation through renewable energy sources can help to make energy infrastructure more resilient. A report we produced together with the World Energy Council discusses what can be done to better protect our energy supplies against extreme weather events.

Our notable achievements in 2015:

  • Together with the World Energy Council (www.worldenergy.org), we published our first report on energy infrastructure and extreme weather, outlining the steps that need to be taken to make our energy supplies resilient for the future;
  • As a founding member of the RE100 initiative (www.theRE100.org), we started 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 (for more details, see “Using renewable power and the RE100 initiative”);
  • We extended Swiss Re Corporate Solutions’ partnership with Solar Impulse (www.solarimpulse.com) on the world’s first round-the world flight with a solar-powered airplane, underscoring our commitment to supporting cutting-edge innovations in the field of sustainability.