Carbon neutrality at Zurich

Our approach to carbon neutrality

We offset our operational emissions¹ on an annual basis, which covers our fleet, office energy and waste, business travel, commuting, strategic data centers, printed paper, commuting and scope 3 impacts from energy.

We follow a two-step approach:

• Reduce emissions as much as possible every year through operational efficiency measures such as energy efficiency, reducing business travel, electrifying our car fleet and purchasing renewable power.
• To support further carbon from being emitted into the atmosphere, and to create funding for social and environmental projects, we offset remaining annual carbon emissions by purchasing gold-level certified carbon credits from the Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve.

Zurich Insurance Group (Zurich) is committed to maintaining its carbon-neutral status while on the pathway to achieving net-zero operational emissions by 2030. This means we will continue to purchase carbon offsets from projects, such as Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve, while over time we increase the proportion of carbon removal credits.

Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve

According to information provided by the Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve, this outstanding forest conversation and offsetting project keeps more than 130 million metric tons of carbon emissions from being released into the earth’s atmosphere. It is located in Central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, and was the first validated REDD+² project under the Verified Carbon Standard. These projects support conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. The reserve is one of the largest REDD+ peat swamp forest projects in the world and protects the forest from being converted to palm oil plantations.

The project aims to preserve and protect one of the most highly endangered ecosystems in the world. It uses the financial resources provided by its sale of carbon credits to form a patrolled buffer zone around the Tanjung Puting National Park. The revenue generated from carbon offsets means the project can become an economically viable alternative to deforestation by enabling the sustainable growth of local economies linked to the preservation of the conservation area. These funds are used not only to maintain and restore forest health, but also to support local communities with healthcare, education, economic empowerment and other social and environmental benefits. Rimba Raya is the first REDD+ project in the world to be audited for SDG (UN Sustainable Development Goal) compliance under the SD Vista Standard – achieving the highest possible rating of contributing to all 17 UN SDGs.

The project is managed by InfiniteEARTH, a pioneer in environmental mitigation credits, who developed Rimba Raya as the first validated REDD+ project under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program, and who helped to develop the “Methodology for Conservation Projects that Avoid Planned Land Use Conversion in Peat Swamp Forests”.

¹ Cover-More, Farmers Group, Inc. and its subsidiaries, joint ventures and third party vendors are out of scope. For further details on our methodology, please see the excel providing an overview of operational emissions targets and results, available for download here
² Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Counties, from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change