sustainable insurance in a time of planetary crisis

let me start via congratulating you on ten years of the standards for sustainable insurance initiative, or psi. this, the biggest collaboration between the united countries and the insurance enterprise, is notably vital.

the insurance industry serves as society’s early warning system and risk manager through knowledge, lowering, pricing and wearing hazard. and the insurance industry and wider financial area have the electricity and duty to power development towards a net-0 economic system and a sustainable future.

over the past ten years, we’ve got seen real development in the industry. via the psi, we’ve great exercise frameworks and steerage designed to embed sustainability within the coronary heart of the coverage business and gain actual-international effect. spotting the important thing role of coverage regulators and supervisors, the psi additionally helped establish the sustainable coverage discussion board in 2016. there is no excuse for any insurer no longer to have a sustainability method for its core commercial enterprise.

greater recently, an initial institution of predominant insurers embedded internet-zero ambitions both of their middle coverage business or of their investments – or both. a few most important insurers have made guarantees and commitments that, if introduced, could make a real distinction. today, the psi encompasses over 220 organizations, along with insurers representing one-1/3 of global top rate and usd 15 trillion in belongings beneath management. we have a international community of practice that can pressure systemic exchange.

for all of this, and a lot more, i thank you.

however now i’m going to inform you what i told my personal corporation and member states at the unep@50 commemoration in march. i am going to inform you what i told international leaders at stockholm+50 in june. i am going to inform you what i can inform each person marking a milestone in environmental action: you have not done sufficient. none people have.

this is not my opinion. it’s far a assertion of truth. a announcement of truth borne out by means of what science tells us about the accelerating triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollutants and waste.

the intergovernmental panel on weather exchange tell us worldwide warming is inflicting dangerous disruption to the natural world, human well-being and economic prosperity. deaths and harm from floods, droughts and storms are on the rise.

all of that is coming at 1.1°c of global warming. and there may be a 50/50 danger we can hit 1.5°c, as a minimum quickly, within the subsequent 5 years. the un workplace for catastrophe danger reduction lately expected that one massive-scale catastrophe will occur each day with the aid of 2030. the dangers posed by using worldwide heating are truly escalating. and but efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are nevertheless way off beam.

is that this sustainable?

the intergovernmental platform on biodiversity and surroundings offerings tells us that nature is in fast decline, gnawing at the foundations of human fitness and prosperity. as much as forty per cent of land is degraded. this degradation influences almost half of the sector’s residents and makes it more and more tough to feed everyone. one million species face extinction. primary tropical forests have been destroyed in 2021 at the price of ten soccer fields every minute.

is that this sustainable?

pollution and waste are killing tens of tens of millions of people every yr. one in six deaths stem from pollutants – from dirty air to poisonous chemical substances. despite developing momentum on plastic pollution, 11 million tonnes of plastic waste are nevertheless tumbling into our oceans every yr. antimicrobial resistance is on the upward push.

is that this sustainable?

those three crises add as much as a single planetary emergency, driven through the unsustainable way we produce goods and eat resources. a crisis that, if left unchecked, will ravage our fitness, our societies, our companies and our economies.

is that this sustainable?

the solution isn’t any.

nerve-racking youth, the folks who might be your customers for many years to return, are bored with our promises. inclined groups least accountable for the harm to our planet are tired of our promises. frankly, i assume we’re bored with our own guarantees.

it’s time to behave. time to cease our dependancy to fossil fuels. restore nature to its full glory. make production and intake sustainable. transform our food structures. make our towns green, habitable, low carbon and catastrophe resilient. and retool the global economic machine, together with the insurance enterprise, to back a healthful planet and healthy humans.

buddies,

you can’t do all of this to your very own. however what you may do is implement ambitious moves to your chance control, coverage and investment activities to help achieve the 2030 intention of halving greenhouse gas emissions. the 2030 aim of reversing nature loss. the 2030 intention of achieving the sustainable development dreams.

so, yes, we are right here these days to have fun what you have got carried out – and you’ve got finished plenty. however we also are here to lay out a way to build on your achievements to get the job achieved. to this stop, i come here with six key asks.

one, decide to the net-0 transition

insurers have to set and put into effect technology-based totally internet-0 techniques and targets for his or her coverage and investment portfolios by using joining the net-0 coverage alliance (nzia) and the net-0 asset owner alliance.

the nzia’s paintings with the partnership for carbon accounting financials to provide the first global wellknown to degree greenhouse gas emissions associated to coverage underwriting portfolios via november 2022 is a superb start line.

the nzia’s work with the technology based objectives initiative to broaden an nzia goal-putting protocol by january 2023 is every other crucial step. this protocol may be utilized by nzia member insurers to set period in-between, science-based totally five-12 months objectives for their respective insurance underwriting portfolios, beginning july 2023.

two, commit to a nature-high-quality transition and pollution prevention

insurers should construct on the psi’s time table-putting work to guard herbal global history web sites, address plastic pollution, and combat unlawful, unreported and unregulated fishing.

insurers must commit to technological know-how-based totally nature-high quality techniques and goals for their coverage and funding portfolios. the psi have to set up a nature-high quality coverage alliance – similar to the net-0 coverage alliance that it mounted in 2021 ­– especially given the predicted adoption of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework later this yr.

insurers need to additionally assist the ambitions of the imminent legally binding international agreement to end plastic pollutants, so that it will be cast by way of 2024.

three, commit to climate resilience and adaptation

protective the most vulnerable and leaving nobody behind is crucial in a just transition to net 0. tackling loss and damage and building resilience ought to no longer be the forgotten aspect of climate movement. lowering disaster chance and final the coverage safety gap are paramount.

insurers must decide to assisting the sustainable insurance facility of the susceptible twenty organization of finance ministers, hosted through the psi. this facility goals to deliver coverage safety to micro, small and medium-sized firms inside the most weather-vulnerable international locations in africa and the center east, the asia-pacific, and latin america and the caribbean.

four, life and health insurers have to decide to sustainability.

fitness is our greatest wealth. life and fitness insurers have to embed sustainability of their center insurance enterprise, not just in their investments, in particular in a put up-covid world more and more impacted through climate change, nature loss, pollutants and social inequality.

insurers ought to adopt and construct on the recommendations of the primary-ever sustainability manual for the global existence and health insurance enterprise, which the psi is launching at this tenth anniversary event.

5, commit to responsibility, transparency and sustainability understanding.

the entire insurance industry fee chain of insurers, reinsurers, brokers and retailers ─ at the side of coverage institutions and coverage regulators ─ need to make sustainability an indispensable part of their choice-making.

insurers need to put in force the suggestions of the project pressure on weather-related financial disclosures, the venture pressure on nature-related monetary disclosures, and the global sustainability standards board – all vital steps to force systemic change.

furthermore, all coverage specialists ought to expand expertise in sustainability, as opposed to leaving it up to three human beings inside an business enterprise. sustainability ought to be an imperative part of an coverage company’s subculture, concepts, values and center commercial enterprise techniques and operations. in short, it have to form part of each insurance selection.

six, create sustainable coverage roadmaps

insurance markets around the arena ought to follow the lead of the california coverage commissioner to broaden the world’s first sustainable coverage roadmap, an initiative supported through the psi. california’s sustainable insurance roadmap can be offered at this psi occasion.

a sustainable insurance roadmap is a complete method and action plan to harness the insurance enterprise’s hazard control services, coverage answers and investments to accelerate the transition to resilient, net-0, nature-nice and inclusive groups and economies. such roadmaps could function foundational frameworks for insurance markets to assist the global schedule of the un decade of motion.

friends,

i do now not wish to decrease your achievements or single out the insurance industry and the wider financial region as laggards. once more, my thanks for the whole lot you have completed during the last ten years. but as i stated, none of us have performed sufficient.

look, humans in fashionable aren’t excellent at looking ahead. most people make quick-term selections primarily based on getting thru the subsequent days, weeks or months. but you, inside the insurance enterprise, aren’t like most human beings. it’s far your job to inspect the destiny, to recognize, reduce, fee and deliver hazard. handling danger is your center business.

i ask you currently to look into the destiny and inform yourself what you notice – what the destiny seems like for the planet, your enterprise fashions, and all people you care about who will live beyond the following few years.

after which ask your self what you’re going to do approximately it.

thanks.

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