At Chubb, we recognize our responsibility to provide solutions that help clients manage environmental risks, to reduce our own environmental impact and to make meaningful contributions to environmental causes.
At Chubb, good corporate citizenship lies at our core — how we practice our craft of insurance, how we work together to serve our customers, how we treat each other, and how we work to help make a better world for our communities and our planet.
Recognizing and responding
To the reality of climate change across our businesses
Environmental risk for our customers with innovative products and risk engineering solutions
Environmental resiliency projects throughout the world
Biodiversity and saving land through our philanthropy
The environmental footprint of our own operations
Chubb and climate change
Climate change is a reality and its effects can be seen by an increased frequency and severity of natural catastrophes. Climate change is contributing to higher sea surface temperatures, rising sea levels and increasing trend in extreme weather events, including floods, droughts, winter storms, heat waves, wildfires and hurricane intensity. Chubb’s business involves providing clients with insurance and reinsurance protection from the impact of natural catastrophes, including weather events that are more frequent or severe. We recognize that a changing climate affects everyone — customers, employees, shareholders, business partners and the communities we serve.
Chubb is an underwriting company, and the company strives to emphasize quality of underwriting rather than volume of business or market share. The company’s underwriting strategy is to manage risk by employing consistent, disciplined pricing and risk selection. Underwriting discipline is at the heart of our operating philosophy. Chubb applies the same risk management rigor to its broadly diversified fixed income portfolio as it does to the company’s underwriting practice. In addition, Chubb accounts for the potential impact of catastrophe and climate risks on the company’s own facilities and operations. Direct risk to Chubb’s business operations exists to the extent that increasingly frequent or severe weather events associated with climate change occur where Chubb has offices.
At Chubb, assessing and managing risk starts at the top, with senior management. Risk management at Chubb is rigorous, with processes and governance to provide checks and balances. Chubb’s global enterprise risk management (ERM) framework — which encompasses climate risk — is embraced by colleagues at all levels of the company, from the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Board of Directors, down to each business unit and function. It is broadly multi–disciplinary and one of its objectives is effective governance.
Risk management
The potential impacts of climate change on the insurance industry are myriad and multivariate. These risks and opportunities fall broadly into three categories: physical risks and opportunities; transition risks and opportunities; and liability risks and opportunities
Chubb measures and reports on climate risk in a number of different ways. A primary objective of Chubb’s environmental program is to measure, record and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the company’s own operations.
At the end of 2019, Chubb achieved the first of its two GHG emissions reduction goals. We reduced our GHG emissions by 22% off a 2016 baseline, exceeding our goal of reducing emissions 20% by 2025. As of year-end 2021, Chubb also reached the second of its two goals by reducing our Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions by 49% off a 2016 baseline. We accomplished this goal through a combination of real estate portfolio optimization, energy efficiency projects and renewable electricity purchase.
Achieving this goal has reduced our emission by nearly 45,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year. Chubb's goals are aligned with the two-degree Celsius target outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as the quantitatively supported science-based standards methodology of the United Nations Environmental Program. Chubb will continue to use these strategies to further reduce the carbon footprint of our own activities. In addition, we are considering future ambitious, but achievable, targets.
This was the third GHG emissions reduction commitment that Chubb has undertaken since launching our Corporate Environmental Program in 2006, and the first that adheres to science–based standards. This was also the first companywide goal announced since ACE Limited acquired The Chubb Corporation and adopted the Chubb name globally in 2016.
Chubb 2023 Climate Related Financial Disclosure
The Chubb Corporate Environmental Program is now in its 17th year. Chubb remains committed to communicating important information about the company’s environmental initiatives to our clients, shareholders, employees, business partners, the communities where we operate and others who have an interest in our company, our industry and the environment. Our Climate Related Financial Disclosure outlines the full scope of the company’s environmental program and initiatives.
In 2019, Chubb was one of the first insurers with major U.S. operations to adopt a policy concerning coal-related underwriting and investment. With the policy, the company no longer underwrites the construction and operation of new coal-fired plants or new risks for companies that generate more than 30% of their revenues from coal mining or energy production from coal. Insurance coverage for existing coal-plant risks that exceed this threshold will be phased out by 2022, and for utilities beginning in 2022. In addition, Chubb will not make new debt or equity investments in companies that generate more than 30% of revenues from thermal coal mining or energy production from coal.
