Sustainability serves the insurance industry’s own interests. But the industry itself is making slow progress in implementing the “Environment”, “Social” and “Governance” criteria. The German Zurich has attracted attention in the past few weeks with a series of “green” reports.
Sustainability even has its own button in the news section of the Zurich website. “The topic of sustainability is out of the ‘temporary fashion’ corner,” says head of communications Bernd O. Engelelien in conversation with VW today. He rejects the suspicion of “green washing” and reports on how to arouse “fun and joy in sustainability” in the workforce. Because: “Dirigistic measures are not the path that leads to the goal,” said Engelien.
“We aim to be one of the most sustainable companies in the world – this applies to the group and thus to all national companies,” says Engelien. In the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), the global group is already the leading insurer. In mid-November, the goal was announced to avoid five million tons of CO2 equivalents annually. As an institutional investor, the group relies on the impact of its commitment in its impact investment portfolio instead of – as usual – specifying a certain monetary amount for “green investments”. “We put environmental and social goals at the center of our impact investment strategy. It is also about improving the quality of life for five million people a year, ”explains Engelien. The impact investing portfolio of currently 5.4 billion dollars includes green bonds, social and sustainable bonds, private equity funds that invest accordingly.
Don’t exclude any industry
“We use our market position to influence other companies, but we do not exclude anyone because of alleged misconduct,” said Engelien. “In concrete terms, this means: We are expanding our commitment to climate protection and want to rely entirely on renewable energies in the future.” The first insurer to sign a UN commitment in 2019, which aims to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2030. “This means that we will convert our business activities worldwide to 100 percent renewable energy. We will also actively support our portfolio companies and customers in developing plans to reduce their dependence on oil sands, oil shale and steam coal, ”he explains.
With the climate crisis, the risk of major and more frequent natural disasters increases. The frequency of certain loss events such as heavy rain, hail or drought has long been generally observed in Germany. Only damage that has been prevented or not occurred is ultimately “good” damage – which is why sustainability is actually in the DNA of the insurance industry. But how do ESG projects get into the workforce? Surveys and studies show that the topic is not yet lived. The “Transparency Regulation 2019/2088 of the European Union”, which has been in force since 2019 and obliges product providers as well as financial advisors to make the sustainability of the products in customer service transparent by March 10, 2021 at the latest, is considered by the public as largely unknown.
“Intrinsic motivation” for employees
“We don’t rely on the constantly raised index finger, but on intrinsic motivation. Not from top to bottom. The aim is to awaken an inner willingness, ”says Engelien. The employees are invited to contribute with suggestions and projects on sustainability. “We don’t prescribe anything, but rely on our culture of participation. We have deliberately not rigidly institutionalized the way in which employees can contribute their ideas, employee participation. rather, we encourage direct exchange with one another. Basically we are in an open exchange with open access routes so that nothing silts up. This is how we designed our offices in Frankfurt and Cologne. ” In this context, the Zurich Group Germany celebrated its “Green Week” at the end of September – but it was two weeks. There are also the formats “strategy dialogues” and “strategy impulses”, to which all employees are invited to work on the corporate strategy.
“Many suggestions came from the workforce – for example, the company bike, the sustainable food offer in the company restaurant, insect hotels on the roof terraces, the type of Christmas tree or the administration building in rainbow colors during the pandemic-related Cologne Pride to illuminate”, Engelien counts some of the green projects on. “At the beginning of November we went live with an employee app to intensify the exchange, especially among the many home workers. Highlights such as a ‘late night show’ with the management board should make communication tangible and help to tear down glass floors. ”
A tree for every employee
In addition to “green” approaches from the planning of the new administration building in Cologne, through paper savings and virtual damage assessments to compensation in kind in claims settlement, there are of course also lighthouse projects such as the “Zurich Forest”. In this project supported by the German group, over a million trees are to be planted in Brazil. So far it has been certain that a tree will be planted for each of the 55,000 Zurich employees. “In order to achieve multiplier effects from our leadership, we will of course also include sales in our Zurich Forest project. Because sustainability must be placed on a broad foundation, ”says Engelien. How this project can be used for sales is in the planning stage.
Contrary to the contrary opinion that ESG criteria have so far been of little interest to sales, Engelien reports that these “signals that sustainability is increasingly being requested by customers – especially when it comes to investment products. Here we offer sustainable funds that have at least as good performance opportunities as classic products. ” At Zurich, according to his statement, the broker has “the advantage that we are serious about sustainability. This is the opposite of greenwashing. You can see that from the fact that we started with a clear sustainability goal that is deeply rooted in our corporate strategy. ” Zurich offers brokers various seminars with internal and external experts as well as within the framework of cooperations to deal with the topic of sustainability. “We wanted to play that more clearly at the leading trade fair DKM, which unfortunately had been reduced due to the corona. We are now using electronic media with full energy, ”says Engelien.
Author: Monika Lier
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