At the upcoming Insurance Business Innovation Summit in Sydney on May 11, one of the panel topics is: “Climate change – assessing risk mitigation and resilience”. The session will examine how insurance companies can assess and advocate climate risk mitigation and resilience to better prepare for future events.
One of the panellists is Sema Whittle (pictured above), general manager of corporate governance and sustainability for Allianz. Whittle said she oversees “all things ESG [Environmental, Social, and Governance] related” for the global insurer in Australia.
Her responsibilities include the firm’s environment office, charged with helping customers and partners transition towards net zero and better protect themselves against climate change.
She also ensures Allianz’s Australia operations are heading towards net zero and supply chains are “focused on sustainability.”
That only covers the ‘E’ in ESG.
“I also have all things ‘S,’” said Whittle. “So I look after our customer advocacy, our customers experiencing vulnerability and our complaints management.”
The there’s the corporate governance – the ‘G’.
“That includes our management committees, our policies, our delegations and all that wiring that exists across the organisation that supports effective decision making and integrating sustainability across the organisation,” she said.
Whittle said it’s “wonderful” that Allianz has paired governance with the sustainability function.
“That means not only can we drive the soft wiring, which is the culture change but we can also make sure that we wire sustainability into the business, to embed responsible business practices and sustainability for our customers into everything that we do,” she said.
Whittle said Allianz, as a large organisation, is trying to “think about all the different levers that we are able to pull” in order to drive action around climate change.
“So the types of things we think about are where we invest our money as an organization and where we choose not to invest our money, who we choose to insure and who we don't insure, the products and services that we provide to our customers, as well as our supply chain,” she said.
There’s also the impact Allianz itself has as a business operation.
“So our actual footprint that we cause through our operations such as our buildings, through our travel and the paper that we use,” said Whittle. “But we think about getting the impact we have as a business to net zero as just being hygiene, we have to do that.”
The insurer is aiming for net zero in its business operations by 2030. Whittle said her firm’s climate sustainability targets are “ambitious.”
“We have a European parent who is really working to shape the way on sustainability,” she said. “So that's wonderful for us because we have a very strong tone from the top, from our parent office and our board and executive are equally very committed to sustainability.”
Whittle said her firm has restricted its investments and underwriting in the coal industry since 2015.
“We're working to phase out coal based business models by 2040,” she said. “That approach and those decisions have been made in line with scientific targets to help limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.”
From the beginning of this year, she said, Allianz started limiting insuring and investing in oil and gas operations.
Whittle cited the insurer’s membership of several local sustainability and climate change groups and, globally, as a founding member of the UN convened Net Zero Asset Owners Alliance and Net Zero Insurance Alliance.
“So that makes us one of 15 world leading insurers that are committed to transitioning our underwriting portfolios to net zero by 2050,” she said.
On her panel at the IB Innovation Summit, Whittle plans to discuss how effectively driving sustainability depends on integrating it across the business.
“It needs to be considered right across an organisation’s value,” she said. “We’re even starting to think about the people that we attract into the company and how we build the capability of our people and our leaders to drive change in sustainability.”
This year, said Whittle, every Allianz employee will be given a KPI on sustainability so that everyone can start thinking about those principles in their roles.
“We have a target to get up to the equivalent of 100% renewable energy for our business operations - we're currently sitting at 76%,” she said. “Also, we're running a pilot this year to start transitioning our organisation’s tool of trade vehicles to EVs [electric vehicles].”
The goal, she said, is for all of those vehicles to be EVs by 2030.
“I think the challenge is to view sustainability as a whole culture change,” said Whittle. “It’s only when, for example, your investment managers are making decisions to invest sustainably and your product people are designing products that are more sustainable, and that's it wired throughout the organization, that we're going to be able to change as quickly as we need to.”
IB’s Innovation Summit is taking place on May 11 at the Fullerton Hotel in Sydney. You can register for the event here.
