How we determine materiality
A key question for any company that seeks to advance sustainability is what this means in the context of its own business and industry: Which topics are “material” to achieving this goal?
In order to identify these material Sustainability Topics, we follow a structured process that taps into our internal risk expertise and inputs from ongoing dialogue with our stakeholders, and takes into account the work of various standard-setters (eg reporting frameworks, sustainability definitions used by rating agencies, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, etc). You can read a detailed description of this assessment process on our website.
The following illustration shows the result of our materiality assessments: Our 2030 Sustainability Ambitions, which are closely related to our core business and re/insurance solutions, as part of the full set of our Sustainability Topics. All our Sustainability Topics as well as related targets and key achievements are described in chapter "Our topics, targets achievements".
We conducted a high-level review of our Sustainability Topics in 2020. Our internal sustainability experts discussed the relevance of the topics as well as potential gaps and new developments in dedicated expert meetings. One topic that emerged in 2020 – and may become a key topic for us in the future – is biodiversity and ecosystem services. In 2021, we plan to develop an approach on how to better integrate this topic into our Group Sustainability Strategy.