Swiss Re

Does the core business genuinely avoid or reduce emissions, or build climate resilience? Share of revenue that is actually 'green'. Fossil-dependent models score low.

Swiss Re's core reinsurance business directly builds societal resilience to climate-driven catastrophes and it enforces hard underwriting exclusions — no new oil-and-gas field projects since January 2023, no coverage for the top 10% most carbon-intense oil-and-gas producers, and a thermal coal phase-out plan targeting full exit by 2030 (OECD) and 2040 (globally) — but it continues to underwrite a large conventional fossil-fuel book, limiting its net mitigation impact.

Credible, science-based targets (SBTi), a real net-zero plan with progress to date, and CDP disclosure — not just a dated press release.

Swiss Re has a net-zero-by-2050 underwriting ambition with interim 2025/2030 portfolio-coverage milestones, a published Climate Transition Plan, and 100% renewable electricity achieved since 2020, but credibility is materially weakened by its 2025 withdrawal from SBTi validation (without explanation) and its 2023 exit from the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance; its current CDP Climate Change score is a mid-tier 'B', not the 'A' it held in earlier years.

Operational footprint, labour and social practices, and governance quality across the company's own operations and supply chain.

Swiss Re holds an MSCI ESG AAA rating, a Sustainalytics low-risk ESG rating, maintains 100% renewable electricity across operations, achieved a 64% reduction in absolute air-travel GHG emissions versus its 2018 baseline, invested USD 4.4 billion in green/social/sustainability bonds, and reports 84% employee engagement; female board representation meets the self-set 30% target.

Quality of disclosure, independent third-party verification, and how much hard data backs the company's claims.

Swiss Re publishes annual sustainability and climate-related financial disclosures verified by KPMG, discloses insurance-associated emissions via the PCAF standard, and reports against TCFD; however, it acknowledges that reliable IAE data covers only ~22% of its portfolio, creating material disclosure gaps on the most climate-relevant metric — underwriting emissions.

Controversies, litigation, pollution, fossil-fuel lobbying, conflict-zone involvement and governance scandals. Higher means cleaner.

No major pollution, litigation, or governance scandals are on record, but Swiss Re's credibility has been dented by two sequential retreats from collective climate commitments — exiting the NZIA in May 2023 without providing a public rationale, and dropping SBTi validation in September 2025 — and Reclaim Finance has criticised its oil-and-gas exclusion policy as insufficiently precise in defining 'most carbon-intensive' production.