With extreme weather wreaking havoc in Australia every year, many insurance companies have been focusing on sustainability and battling the impacts of climate change.
In an Insurance Business TV (IBTV) episode, which you can watch here, Insurance Australia Group (IAG) executive general manager (safer communities) Ramana James spoke about the insurance giant's journey towards sustainability, including facing and addressing climate challenges.
James noted increased pressure on adopting sustainable practices, reducing the impacts of climate change, and making people and communities resilient to extreme weather.
“We've seen the biggest acceleration within investors, and their knowledge and understanding of these issues … play an important role in an organisation's financial success. So, you're increasingly seeing investors [asking] more questions through investor roadshows, taking sustainability indices more seriously,” James told Insurance Business Australia (IB). “We’ve also seen it on the government and regulator side, [with] an increased focus on things like climate risk, knowing that they are significant across the economy [and] they play out in the solvency and sustainability of corporations that are operating in a climate-impacted world.”
Read more: IAG signs up for Net-Zero Insurance Alliance
James further shared that IAG faces difficult climate-related questions during investor roadshows. Additionally, customers are now more conscious of the products and businesses they support as they usually take a hit from extreme weather events and the impacts of climate change.
“They're all thinking about and taking this stuff more seriously, and they're starting to make choices around the products and services that they buy based on how those companies address these issues as well,” he said.
However, engaging with advocacy groups has helped the insurance giant's people to answer these questions.
“We’ve been quite actively engaging advocacy groups on climate for many years and have heard their voices,” James said. “Our climate strategy, our vision, and ambition and where we're heading [reflect that, and we’re using] science-based targets to help us get to those outcomes.
“We've had people engaged and asking really good, important questions at our AGM. We probably haven't seen the level of activism that some organisations have who haven't taken it as seriously and who aren't not just addressing the issues but actually engaging key stakeholders in that process as well.”
IAG has been focusing on sustainability for many years. Most recently, it joined the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), a team of major insurance companies committed to transitioning their insurance and reinsurance underwriting portfolios to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Find out more about the climate challenges IAG has been facing over the years and its plans to address them by watching the IBTV episode here.
