Responsible investment

Our responsibility as an investor: doing well and doing good

Data as of 31 December 2017

Responsible investment

Responsible investment is integral to our investment philosophy and approach. For us, it is about managing our assets of approximately USD 200 billion in a way that creates sustainable value - in other words, to do well and do good. When we do ‘well’, we generate superior risk-adjusted returns for our customers and shareholders and when we do ‘good' we have a positive impact on society and the communities where we live and work.

Investing our financial assets responsibly

Shaping a more resilient tomorrow

Zurich increases its commitment to impact investments and introduces impact targets

In 2017, Zurich announced that it had achieved its multi-year goal of investing USD 2 billion in green bonds, part of its impact investing portfolio. Going forward, it will target USD 5 billion for the entire portfolio of impact investments, more than double the original commitment of USD 2 billion. To achieve this, Zurich will invest in a variety of impact investments across asset classes and around the globe. In addition, it will establish a measurement framework to track the impact of these investments, with the goal of avoiding five million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions annually and enhancing the sustainability of five million people per year. Read more

How to deal with climate change?

Every business and asset will be affected by climate change and the collective action taken to mitigate or adapt to it. This will be the case even if society successfully transitions toward a low-carbon economy, and, as envisaged by the Paris Accord, succeeds in keeping future temperature increases this century ‘well below’ two degrees Celsius. The impacts of climate change run through all the elements of our responsible investment strategy. How can we make sure that a proper assessment of risks and opportunities is reflected in investment decisions? How can we help finance measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change? How can we deal with the fact that many consequences of climate change will only materialize over a medium- to long-term time horizon? And how can we help to encourage changes that better enable financial markets to effectively deal with climate change, and approach it as both a risk and an opportunity?

Zurich has defined a clear strategy to reflect climate change in its investment approach and we are committed to action in seven areas. Read more

Reducing risk and helping communities: This is what we aim to do in providing insurance, and in managing our customers’ premiums. Responsible investment achieves both goals, which is why we implement it in theory and in practice.

ESG integration

In making investment decisions or choosing asset managers, we evaluate not only financial performance – we also look at the ‘performance’ of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in our considerations.

Impact investing

We fund institutions or projects that generate safe, adequate returns and have positive environmental or social impacts.

Advancing together

Responsible investing is a story still being written. Together with a broad group of stakeholders, we are helping to write it.

Responsible investment KPIs

Some of the content on this webpage originates from a third party, not from Zurich. Zurich does not verify this third party content and neither endorses nor adopts it as its own. Zurich cannot guarantee the accuracy of such content and assumes no liability in connection thereto.

Mainstreaming Impact Investing

Our responsible investment approach has been included as a case study in two reports by the World Economic Forum Mainstreaming Impact Investing Initiative.

Transparency report

As a signatory to the Principles for Responsible Investment, Zurich is reporting annually on progress made.

Investment Leaders Group

The Investment Leaders Group (ILG), of which Zurich is a founding member, has issued a variety of reports.