Collaborating to advance responsible investment

We have been a signatory of the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) since 2012. The PRI Initiative, a non-profit organization created in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative and the UN Global Compact, is a network of institutional investors, asset managers and service providers working together to put the Principles for Responsible Investment into practice and to share and promote best practice in Responsible Investment.

The Green Bond Principles (GBP) and Social Bond Principles (SBP) are voluntary process guidelines promoting transparency, disclosure and integrity in developing green, social and sustainability bond markets. The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) is acting as the GBP's secretariat.

Zurich is a member of the GBP Executive Committee and the Investor Deputy Chair of the GBP Steering Committee.

Visit the GBP website

 

    

We are proud to be a founding member of The Investment Leaders Group (ILG), originally launched as a three-year project in 2013 to help shift the investment chain toward responsible, long-term value creation. In the meantime, a second three-year phase has started in 2016. Part of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership's Business Action Platform, the ILG draws on academic research taking place at the University of Cambridge and corporate leadership at its member companies. Despite having different investment strategies, these corporate leaders share the common goal of wishing to ‘lead by example’ in creating standards to support the advancement of responsible investment.

Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the scale and effectiveness of impact investing.

Zurich is a member of GIIN’s Investors' Council, which provides a platform for impact investors to connect, share ideas, seek feedback and use GIIN's resources and expertise to measure impact.

Visit the GIIN website

Emerging Market Private Equity Association (EMPEA) is an independent non-profit organization. It is a global emerging markets private capital association, whose members aim to achieve investment returns and sustainable growth in emerging markets.

Zurich is a member of the EMPEA Impact Investing Council.

The Italian Sustainable Investment Forum (Forum per la Finanza Sostenibile or FFS) is a non-profit, multi-stakeholder organization founded in 2001. FFS aims to promote sustainable finance in Italian financial markets. In particular, the FFS promotes the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria in the policies and processes adopted by investors. FFS is a founding member of Eurosif (The European Sustainable and Responsible Investment Forum), a pan-European network that works to develop sustainability in European financial markets.

Zurich joined FFS in 2015 and actively supports its workshops and initiatives.

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Zurich UK is a signatory to ClimateWise, the global insurance industry’s leadership group that works to address climate change risk. The group uses the insurance industry’s expertise to better understand, communicate and act on climate risks. ClimateWise is supported by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, which also launched the Investor Leader's Group (ILG) that Zurich also actively supports.

Visit the ClimateWise website

Zurich is an active contibutor to the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Mainstreaming Sustainable and Impact Investing initiative and a member of the initiative's steering committee. Zurich was featured as a case study in two of the initiatives' reports.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is one of the leading authorities on global environment. The UNEP’s ‘Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System’ aims to gather knowledge to promote resilience, identify best practice and explore ways to support a financial system aligned with these goals. 

The Inquiry, as part of its task, asked several countries, including Switzerland, to provide answers to questions related to sustainable financial systems. The Swiss initiative was led by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN); it requested information from a variety of Swiss companies, industry groups, academic institutions and others. Zurich represented the Swiss general insurance and life insurance industries in the initiative. All other participants are listed in the report.

 

Visit the UNEP website

Population Services International (PSI) is a global organization dedicated to improving the health of people in emerging countries. Founded in 1970, it focuses on market-based approaches to achieve this goal. In 2013, Zurich and PSI together looked at ways private investors and NGOs can work together to achieve greater social impact while still generating a return on investments. In collaboration with PSI, we produced a report that introduces a systematic framework providing concrete ideas on how NGOs might use private investor capital to deliver increased social impact.

Download the executive summary

Download the report

Visit the PSI website