Zurich's Climate Initiative
Our Climate Initiative takes a market-based approach to addressing the risks that we and our customers face from climate change.
The Climate Initiative has three main elements:
- An internal Climate Office responsible for developing and implementing Zurich's global climate change strategy;
- A Climate Change Advisory Council to advise Zurich's management on strategic and operational issues associated with climate change; and
- An Applied Research Program with organizations and institutions that can bring multi-disciplinary expertise to bear on the issues associated with climate change.
Internally, we have performed an in-depth assessment of our own carbon footprint, using 2007 as our base year. The resulting Group-wide emissions from all sources considered were estimated to be 243,000 tons, or 4.17 tons per employee. Going forward, we have committed to a 10 percent reduction target of our Group-wide emissions by 2013. This reduction target will be pursued through a combination of cleaner energy sources, energy efficiency measures, reduced air travel and the gradual transition of our car fleet to more fuel efficient cars. See more information about Zurich's Group-wide carbon footprint.
Our research, outreach and advocacy efforts have already led to a number of outputs – see some of the climate insights for a sample of what we’ve delivered recently.
All of these efforts are aimed ultimately at helping our customers. Take a look at some of the innovative climate-related products we offer to meet that goal.
