ZURICH, Switzerland - Zurich Financial Services Group will develop products and services addressing the evolving risks of climate change and establish a strategy to manage its own carbon footprint under a newly launched initiative.
As part of effort, ZFS has established an internal climate office that will spearhead an understanding of climate-related risks across the Zurich, Switzerland-based insurer's businesses.
The insurer also set up an advisory council of internal and external members who will report to ZFS' group management on strategic and operational issues associated with climate change. Former United States Congressman Sherwood Boehlert and Ernst Ulrich von Weizsacker, dean of the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara, are the first two members named to the council.
As part of its carbon management strategy, ZFS will partner with various organizations to examine the critical economic, financial and policy issues associated with climate change, the insurer said in a statement.
Its first such partnership, with the Bren School, will assess ZFS' carbon footprint and develop an approach that the insurer can use to manage its emissions in a sustainable manner.
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