Planting

Sustainable sourcing

We aim to work with suppliers who share our values, and we expect high standards of business conduct from those who represent us or do business with us.

Our approach

Due to the nature of our business, we are predominantly a consumer of services, and not products or raw materials. Compared with other industry sectors such as manufacturing, the risks associated with the environmental, social and governance impact of Zurich's supply chain are low. Nonetheless, we are committed to effectively managing such issues within our supply chain.

We aim to work with suppliers who share our values, and we expect high standards of business conduct from those who represent us or do business with us. We are continually working to improve processes and guidelines for managing sustainability issues in the supply chain and have established a Sustainable Sourcing program in order to establish the necessary governance and allocate the required resources to our efforts. Our Sustainable Sourcing program has three core pillars that address environmental, social and ethical factors. The key objective of the program is to embed these factors throughout the sourcing lifecycle.

infographic sustainable sourcing

Supplier Code of Conduct

For some time, we have been considering environmental, social and ethical factors using evaluation criteria to assess the goods and services we buy. We have also been ensuring that relevant sustainability clauses are included in contracts with suppliers, such as ethical conduct and labor, health and safety and environmental standards.

With the launch of our Supplier Code of Conduct in June 2021, we set out clear environmental, social and ethical expectations for our suppliers, globally.

Our expectations are based upon practices that we have already adopted within our own operations. By establishing the Supplier Code of Conduct we aim to use our influence as a significant buyer of goods and services, as a force for good, accelerating the global adoption of sustainable business practices amongst our suppliers.

We are engaging with our suppliers to align on the Supplier Code of Conduct expectations. This starts with us sharing our training videos and asking them to complete a self-assessment to rate their performance.

Supplier Training Videos

Find out more about the Supplier Code of Conduct and the expectations that we have set for our suppliers by watching our collection of informative training videos.

We work with our suppliers to address any areas where they don’t meet expectations and aim to agree contractual clauses to embed the standards - ensuring an ongoing focus on sustainability for the benefit of Zurich, our customers and society as a whole. We take our sustainability commitment seriously now and for the future, so where engagement fails, and suppliers can’t or refuse to embed the minimum standards, we’ll review the relationship and consider phasing them out to protect our commitment to doing the right thing.

As of the end of 2024, we confirmed that 72.9%1 of our managed procurement spend is with suppliers that meet or exceed the key expectations of our Supplier Code of Conduct, pursuant to their self-assessment.

"We aim to use our influence as a global buyer of goods and services to drive the adoption of sustainable business practices amongst our suppliers, because as a company, we acknowledge that working with others is where we can make the biggest impact"

Chris Minter

Sustainable Supply Chain Lead

Spotlight on Environmental

In June 2019, as the first insurance company, Zurich committed to set targets in the framework of the UN Global Compact Business Ambition Pledge that aims at limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Since then, Zurich has set science based targets to reduce emissions and is targeting net-zero operational emissions by 2030.

We believe that our suppliers should also commit to reducing the environmental impact arising from their operations so we're proud to have been recognized by CDP as a leader for our work engaging with our suppliers to tackle climate change for the third year running.

Net-zero supply chain

We are looking to our supply chain to set emissions reduction and net zero targets. Our goal is for 75% of our managed procurement spend2 to be with suppliers that have science-based3 emissions reduction targets by 2025 and net zero4 targets by 2030. We aim to use our influence and press for change, expecting suppliers to set their own targets.

As at the end of 2024, 59.4%3 of our managed procurement spend1 was with suppliers that have science-based emissions reduction targets and 51.9%4 with suppliers that have net zero targets.

 

Spotlight on Social

Catalyst Business Commitment (CBC), platinum status

At Zurich, we are committed to supporting a fairer, more open and sustainable society and aim to generate positive social impact within the communities that we operate. We expect our suppliers to contribute to society in a positive way by respecting human rights and treating people fairly. We also seek out opportunities to engage with social enterprises and recognize the key role that these businesses play in creating social value. We are proud that our work with the social enterprise sector has earned us the highest recognition, platinum status, from the Catalyst Business Commitment (CBC). You can learn more about our approach by watching our social procurement video.

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      Our work with social enterprises is one example of how Zurich is generating a positive social impact within the communities where we operate. In 2016, Zurich in the UK signed up to Social Enterprise UK’s ‘Buy Social’ Corporate Challenge, which commits a group of high profile companies in different types of industries to spend GBP 1 billion in total on purchasing goods and services from social enterprise companies. These are businesses that reinvest their profits to address social and environmental issues — from homelessness and unemployment to landfill waste and climate change.

      Zurich remains committed to foster spending through social enterprises and organizations that commit to donating a portion of profits to achieve social impact. Our spending in the UK with our stationery and talent development provider, Wildhearts Group, has helped transform over 1,000 lives around the world through programs addressing gender inequality and social mobility. Examples include business micro loans to women in developing countries and the provision of free training and education for disadvantaged school children and marginalized groups in the UK and abroad. Our spending in Ireland and Germany with Auticon, a unique, multi-national IT consultancy, which exclusively employs autistic adults as IT consultants and in Ireland with GiveMeTap, who use a portion of the profits generated by selling their water bottles to fund water projects in Africa are further examples of our purposeful engagement with social enterprises.

      We are now focused on expanding our engagement with social enterprises throughout the other countries that Zurich operates, leveraging our award winning experience from the UK. We are part of a pilot, led by Social Enterprise UK with the support of Euclid Network, the European Social Enterprise Network and Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF), which aims to make it easier for corporations to engage with social enterprise suppliers across the whole of the EU + Switzerland region.

      When working with suppliers, we apply our Supplier Code of Conduct which sets a clear expectation that our suppliers respect human rights. Each year, we conduct an annual human rights risk assessment to identify potential adverse impacts on human rights within our supply chain. The labor standards and workplace practices operated by our suppliers are a critical factor in the likelihood of adverse human rights impacts occurring. In 2024, our findings indicate that our supply chain has a low-risk exposure to such issues. We also carried out an additional assessment concerning child labor, following the same approach adopted in 20231. The assessment confirmed that there remains no reasonable suspicion of child labor within our supply chain.

      The first step in our human rights risk assessment is to analyze the human rights set out in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and seek to identify which, if any, of these fundamental human rights could be adversely impacted in our tier-one supply chain, i.e., those suppliers with whom we have a direct buying contract.

      We then seek to identify the goods and services categories and countries where the potential risk of adverse impacts to human rights issues is highest. To identify high-risk goods and services categories, we consider data and reports from reputable NGOs and our own internal expert judgement. Our assessment is based upon the prevalence of human rights issues reported and an assessment of working practices at industry or sector level. Our assessment of high-risk countries is based on:

      • The reported prevalence of human rights issues.
      • The degree of respect for worker rights, based upon local laws and actual practices.
      • The extent of political freedom and civil liberties.
      • The extent of corruption.

      We share the findings of this assessment internally, provide relevant training, carry out risk-based due diligence on suppliers and use a software tool that uses artificial intelligence to screen news reports, social media posts and NGO reports to monitor potential ESG-related (including human rights) supply chain issues.

      Spotlight on Ethical

      At Zurich, we care about doing the right thing and embrace high standards of business conduct. We endeavour to work with suppliers who share our values, and we expect high standards of ethical conduct from those who represent us or do business with us.

      We have established a framework of minimum standards to be applied to the onboarding and management of third parties with which we work, including suppliers. The framework adopts a risk-based approach to establish onboarding and management measures, such as third-party due diligence processes, that are relevant and proportionate to the nature and risk of any particular transaction. We consider supplier alignment with our Supplier Code of Conduct as part of our due diligence processes and request selected suppliers to complete a self-assessment covering our ethical expectations including those relating to protecting people’s personal data, retaining records and whistleblowing.

      We have a referral process in place to investigate or resolve, as appropriate, any red flags identified during the due diligence process. We also use a software tool that uses artificial intelligence to screen news reports, social media posts and NGO reports to monitor potential ESG-related supply chain issues. We additionally seek to include specific provisions within our supplier contracts requiring suppliers to embrace ethical business practices. From time to time, we may conduct audits or follow-up reviews on these topics with our suppliers.

      1 The spend of approximately USD 2 billion annually managed by Zurich’s Procurement and Vendor Management function according to the 2023 baseline on goods and services that are required to enable Zurich to maintain and develop its operations, excluding suppliers no longer active in the year of reporting.
      2 The spend of approximately USD 2 billion annually managed by Zurich’s Procurement and Vendor Management function on goods and services that are required to enable Zurich to maintain and develop its operations.
      3 We consider a supplier to have science-based targets when their emission reduction targets are approved by the SBTi, a similar scientifically accredited body or otherwise require a reduction of at least 42 percent in scope 1 and 2 emissions.
      4 We consider a supplier to have net-zero targets when their net-zero target is approved by the SBTi, a similar scientifically accredited body or otherwise has a public target to neutralize any residual scope 1 and 2 emissions.
      5 Pursuant to the Swiss Ordinance on Due Diligence and Transparency in relation to Minerals and Metals from Conflict-Affected Areas and Child Labor.