Climate Week Zurich: How one of the world's largest insurers is building climate resilience

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Lindsey Hall

I'm Lindsey Hall.

Esther Whieldon

And I’m Esther Whieldon.

Lindsey Hall

Welcome to All Things Sustainable, a podcast from S&P Global. As your host, we’ll dive into all the sustainability topics that are reshaping the business world.

Esther Whieldon

Join us every Friday for in-depth analysis and interviews with leaders from around the globe. Together, we’ll break down big sustainability headlines and cut through the jargon.

Lindsey Hall

Welcome back to our special coverage of Climate Week Zurich. We are thrilled that All Things Sustainable is the official podcast of this first ever Climate Week Zurich, May 4 through 9. And all this week, we’ll be bringing you daily episodes featuring the leaders from the public and private sectors. Climate Week Zurich is convening business leaders, policy makers, the non-profits and members of the public sector across hundreds of events with the goal of scaling climate action.

Over the past year, we've heard from many guests on this podcast that the insurance industry is taking a more central role in conversations about climate risk. Today, we're sitting down on the sidelines of Climate Week Zurich to learn how one of the world's largest insurers is approaching climate change, Zurich Insurance. The Zurich-based company was founded more than 150 years ago and now serves people and businesses in more than 200 countries and territories with more than 65,000 employees and more than 82 million customers.

In other words, a big reach across multiple types of insurance, including property and casualty and life insurance. To learn how the company is thinking about sustainability broadly and climate specifically, I talked to Zurich Insurance Chief Sustainability Officer, Linda Freiner. This is the latest in our ongoing CSO Insights series where we talk to Chief Sustainability Officers across industries and around the world. Okay. Here's my conversation with Linda in the Zurich Insurance headquarters.

Lindsey Hall

Linda, thank you so much for sitting down with me on the sidelines of Climate Week Zurich, the very first Climate Week Zurich. Can you start by introducing yourself to our audience?

Linda Freiner

Yes. And thank you so much, Lindsey, for having me. I'm Linda Freiner. I'm the Chief Sustainability Officer for Zurich Insurance Group. It's a global role. I've been at it for almost 10 years. But of course, the role itself has changed tremendously from when I started to where we are today. And I oversee strategy development, implementation, supporting our businesses to implement and execute on our plans and of course, engaging with a lot of different stakeholders, keeping an eye on regulation and, of course, looking for opportunities to serve our customers better.

Lindsey Hall

So a big job. And talk to me about that tremendous change you mentioned. How has it evolved over time?

Linda Freiner

When I stepped into the role, it was the Group Head of Corporate Responsibility, and it was very much about doing good. We put the basics in place in terms of how do we measure our own carbon footprint in our operations, how do we integrate diversity and inclusion into our people strategy? How do we start looking at our supply chain? We also started with responsible investments already back in 2013. So it's very much about how do we manage our own house.

We didn't look too much outwards in terms of our customers to say, okay, so what types of products and services do they need in their transition? And how can we better support them in managing the environmental, social and governance risks that we are increasingly facing. And in the beginning, it was very much an investor-driven topic and the fact that you had to be part of different ESG ratings and you had to be very tactical in terms of how you positioned yourself and you also had to, of course, follow all the frameworks that everyone has followed. So it was very much a main stage that we're operating in.

I think where we're moving, of course, regulation has increased, customer expectations are increasing, but also generally just stakeholder expectation’s increasing. But that is also giving us a space to really do what we believe is the right thing to do for our company and set the priorities that are closest to the business that we're running and the type of impact that we can have. So I would say it's becoming much, much more, okay, this is about Zurich and this is what we can -- how we can use our skills, our expertise, our products and services to contribute to better manage risk in society.

Lindsey Hall

And when you talk about risk in society, talk to me about some of what does that risk look like?

Linda Freiner

I think for an insurance company, of course, our business is risk management. So from a sustainability perspective, it's actually a very privileged situation to be in our industry. We've been looking at big global risks since our company was founded over 150 years. In fact, we started our business by ensuring the industrial revolution and the risk that society was facing then. And now, of course, we are rapidly moving into a situation where risks are compounding.

You can no longer look at climate risk on its own or geopolitical risk on its own or social risk on its own. They're all interconnected and they're all compounding, which means that we're just not having one crisis at a time. We're starting to have big systemic crisis that are facing society. And as an insurance company, it's our job to help our customers navigate those risks and build the right resilience measures in place to be able to withstand the shocks that come from that.

Lindsey Hall

Okay. You used the word resilience, and I'd like to pick up on that because that is something I am increasingly hearing used in the sustainability space. Are you hearing any change in the way people are talking about resilience?

Linda Freiner

I hear tremendous change. I think from an insurance perspective, we've talked for a very long time. It's always been key because it's about how do we keep a system intact against shocks that are coming and how do we continue to be able to prosper? I think there are camps that say resilience is just another buzzword for we try to find something new instead of sustainability because we use that a lot. But actually, for me, it's what underpins everything. As I said, we're looking at all these different shocks.

And actually, they're not one at a time. We actually have to look at it from a systems perspective, and that is very complex to talk about, right, a system. And we know that we cannot just phase out fossil fuels. We need to actually change the entire system of how we have built our societies. It's much, much more complicated. But I think to try to be able to avoid all that complexity to say, “Okay, let's just build resilience into that system so that we can actually withstand the shocks and that we can prosper.”

And I think it also comes from the fact that we have talked a lot about climate risk mitigation for the past 10 years. It's all been mitigation and decarbonization. While from an insurance perspective, we said, “Hey, what about adaptation? And what about the fact that a lot of these risks and particularly extreme weather events is increasing both in frequency and severity?” Yes, we need to decarbonize. We need to mitigate and we need to lower that exposure, but the risks are already increasing.

And therefore, we also need to adapt to this new reality. But there was, of course, a bit of, I would say, people being a bit scared. If we start talking about adaptation, are we going to forget about mitigation? And what we're saying is that, “No, we need to do both.” And what signifies that is resilience in the end. It needs to underpin the whole transition.

Lindsey Hall

The way we've been talking about at S&P Global is that a robust climate strategy encompasses both mitigation and adaptation. And I've definitely heard what you were just describing the sort of fear of talking about adaptation. In fact, I sat down with the CEO of one asset manager at Climate Week in New York City, and he said that in previous years, there was almost like a stigma around talking about adaptation. But he said in 2025 that really changed and suddenly adaptation conversations were in like every room. Are you seeing this sort of growing acknowledgment of the role adaptation has to play?

Linda Freiner

Yes, absolutely, but we've also been driving that. Last year was an important year for us from an advocacy perspective, where we were really vocal in London about the importance of climate resilience and adaptation. And I think, of course, we had a privilege of the fact that the Brazilian presidency of COP actually had brought that onto the agenda. So all of a suddenly resilience was a topic and insurance was at the table because in the end by reducing risks, you can actually build resilience.

We started already in 2024. We developed our own first climate transition plan, and we consciously decided to address both the mitigation and adaptation in that plan. Because as an insurance company, from a mitigation point of view, the key levers that we have is to engage with our customers to understand what their transition looks like, what are the types of technologies that they're developing, CapEx investments they're making and what are the type of insurance solutions that they will need for that transition so that we can start preparing for that and develop the right product.

Similarly, on the investment side, we engage with the companies that we're investing in to understand where do they need capital, what's the type of investments they need to make and how can we support that. And that's the indirect influence that we can have. But on the resilience side, we can really have a direct impact. One is, of course, we're increasingly integrating resilience insights into our underwriting process to make sure that we have the right data, we have the right insights in the underwriting decisions.

But also, what we have done for the past 5 years is also to develop an advisory service business called Zurich Resilience Solutions where we took the cat models that we have been using, of course, for the past 150 years, of course, evolved enormously in approach. And basically, brought in more of the climate science to try to develop forward-looking climate models across many different perils, so flood, hail, windstorms, heat waves and so on, across a longer timeframe that we normally be looking at. And then we actually mix that with our risk engineering services, which is basically going out on the sites of our customers, whether it's a construction site or a factory that is already up and running or even just kind of greenfield investments.

And advising them based on the modeling that we've done and the evaluation of those assets to say, “Hey, what about building the roofing this way? What about making sure that equipment is not too low if the risk of flooding?” So to mix those 2, we can actually now have a very strong proposition to help our customers better manage the risk. And this is separate from the underwriting insurance business. This is really to try to lower the risk before insurance even comes into the picture.

Lindsey Hall

Okay. So a lot I want to follow up on here. I'll just make a quick note that when you're talking about London, you're referring to London Climate Action Week, which in 2025, we saw significantly grow in size by some estimates, more than doubled in size. And then you also mentioned Belém, which is, of course, where the UN held its annual Climate Change Conference with the parties in 2025 in Brazil. And cat models, you mentioned catastrophe models.

I'd love to follow up on what you were saying about how the insurance industry is looking at future climate risks. Because my understanding is that insurance look at historical risk to price things for your customers. But I think I'm hearing you say that actually you're starting to employ forward-looking projections to understand where climate change might go in the future. Am I hearing you correctly?

Linda Freiner

Yes. I think there's -- it's an evolution of cat modeling that is happening in a sense that we used to rely on very big models as an industry. But actually with technology, with AI, we're starting to see many, many smaller model providers that are specialized in certain perils, whether it's floods or whether it's windstorms. And we can actually use that to build our own model.

So we are less reliant on the big ones and actually much better shape our own perspective of where the risks are going to go. So absolutely, I think it's an evolution of how we look at it, and it's more forward-looking because science has improved. We have much, much better scenarios that we can use. Nobody knows exactly what's going to happen into the future, but it helps us project a bit longer in a longer timeframe that we've been able to do before.

Lindsey Hall

You also mentioned that insurance now has more of a seat at the table. And I have certainly heard a lot of different companies and banks and financial institutions talking about how they want to work with insurers. And insurance has become the go-to, the buzzy industry to bring into conversations. Is that what you're experiencing?

Linda Freiner

Look, I think it's one of the goals that we have had to just say, if it's not insurable, it's not investable or financeable. So what we want to try to do is to increase the awareness and understanding of physical risk. Look, we've all looked at the transition risk from a perspective of new investments and investment horizons, but we also need to look at the physical risk. Physical risk is a bit different because you really have to go down at an asset level.

You can't do a physical risk assessment on a company. You have to be much, much more specific, so it has to be much, much more local. But what we're trying to say is that let's make sure when we have a new project, when banks are looking into financing something for their customers, make sure that you do the physical risk assessments as early as possible so that we can really build in a resilient way from the beginning because, as I said, extreme weather events is going to increase in frequency and severity. So let's make sure that we build it better before is the tagline that we've been using a bit.

And I think particularly what we're also trying to say is to bring insurance in earlier into the process because what we've seen in the past is that there's always been insurance capacity in the market. So projects has always got an insurance in different ways. But as the risks are increasing, insurance is going to become harder to find or the insurance capacity that is required might not be the same in the future. But if insurers are brought in early into the process, we can also help with the design, and we can help with the way that things are built. For example, for Climate Action Week last year, we published a report where we looked at over 25,000 renewable energy power generation sites and battery storages in 5 different European countries.

And what we saw was, of course, they are highly vulnerable to extreme weather events. So we need to make sure that we build them as resilient as possible. And it's very simple. If you look at solar panels, it's about what's the type of protective glass that you put on it? Or how do you actually tilt them? Because of hailstorms, the amount of severity and frequency of hailstorms are going to increase. So let's make sure that we actually build them more resilient from the start.

Lindsey Hall

That makes sense. Are you finding that stakeholders are generally receptive to this idea?

Linda Freiner

I absolutely think -- and that's, again, where the importance that resilience, that adaptation that we speak about that. I think the importance is also that we make it as concrete as possible. And that's when sometimes where physical risk is a bit abstract. But when we start talking about flooding, we talk about hailstorms, we talk about extreme heat, then people are like, “Oh, okay, okay. Now I understand what you're talking about.”

Lindsey Hall

It seems a little more tangible.

Linda Freiner

Exactly, yes.

Lindsey Hall

So we're having this conversation again at the very first Climate Week Zurich. What is Zurich Insurance's involvement in this week? What does it look like?

Linda Freiner

Well, first of all, we're really happy that there is a Climate Week Zurich because that brings the topic of climate change closer to stakeholders. So they don't have to travel to New York, they mentioned -- or to London so that we can actually take the local businesses. We have a lot of international companies based in Switzerland. We have top-notch academia sitting around the corner.

We, of course, have a lot of international organization, NGOs based in Switzerland. So to bring these sectors together and really focusing, how do we solve these problems together? Because we're all very clear that nobody can solve the climate challenge alone. We all have to collaborate. And I think what I've seen from Zurich, particularly this year is, of course, tech is also very present. So it's not just the finance industry, but it's also tech as well.

So I think that's fantastic. Look, we are hosting a number of events, of course, because we have our offices here in the center of Zurich. So we're happy to open our doors and be able to convene people and really spark conversations. Our Swiss business has also chosen to be one of the sponsors, so they're running a number of events. So to support as much as we can and to really put Zurich as an important point for dialogue around climate change is important for us.

Lindsey Hall

And when it comes to that dialogue around climate change, what are some of the big questions that the insurance industry needs answered?

Linda Freiner

I think one of the conversations that we had started yesterday was, of course, around what's going to be the impact of the growth in AI and data centers on the energy transition? I think we all are worried, just okay, so we see this exponential growth curve. And at the same time, we know that we need to transition our energy sources and how does that square? I think thankfully, we have a lot of hyperscalers, these leading tech companies that also have strong sustainability commitments, and they are the biggest purchasers and investors in renewable energy.

But still, we know it's going to be tough. And for us who are a big insurer of construction, it's important for us to understand, okay, so where are these technologies going? Of course, we hear about data centers in space. Can these even be underwritten, right? So for us, to understand where is the technology going, where our energy source is going to come from and to be, okay, so how can we support that through our underwriting and risk advisory expertise?

Lindsey Hall

Okay. I was going to ask if you could connect the dots for our listeners between insurance and the work that you do at Zurich Insurance and what's happening with AI. And so one of those ways, as you just said, is underwriting data center construction. Are there other ways that you're thinking about AI as well?

Linda Freiner

Look, of course, in our own operations, we're trying to see, okay, so how can we use AI to serve our customers better? Because insurance is often seen as too complex, too slow and too replaceable. It's -- nothing is unique. I need a car insurance. I don't really care where it comes from, so that we can actually better understand our customer needs and what type of products and services that they need.

Of course, it's also when it comes to claim services, how can we be faster in responding to claims, evaluate claims and be there for our customers? So there's a lot of usage point for an industry like ours, who are fundamentally built on data and AI can help speed up so much of that data processing and data management to help us really become much, much more efficient and serving our customers even better.

Lindsey Hall

We talked a little at the beginning about how your role has evolved, and we talked to a lot of Chief Sustainability Officers on this podcast. What are you hearing from your cohort of CSOs? What is it like to be a CSO at this point in time?

Linda Freiner

I think what I really like about this time, it's about the focus on execution. Like we have set all the big commitments. We have put out the plans. I mentioned our climate transition plan, and now we're really busy executing of really trying to say, okay, so how can we meet the interim targets that we've set? What are the types of products and services that we need to provide to our customers? In our case, how do we allocate capital to the right things?

I am a doer. I am rolling up the sleeves type of person. So I really enjoy this space. Of course, there's a lot of uncertainty around regulation and how is that going to come. But we try to really face it in terms of our approach. We believe in what we are doing.

We are very fortunate from a Swiss perspective that Switzerland is quite consistent when it comes to regulation. We already need to have a climate transition plan, but it's not very descriptive in terms of what that needs to look like. We have sustainability reporting requirements that are principle based, which makes it quite straightforward for us to report. So I think we are in a really good time.

I think, unfortunately, risks are rising and to be able to make that connection, as I said, the fact that these risks compound that actually, it's not just the geopolitical risk in isolation, but the tripling effect that has on society. It's also a very interesting time to be part of and trying to understand, okay, now more than ever, how can we make sure that we can help transition to society so that we can ease in some of these dependencies, but still making sure that we grow our societies that we grow our economies and that we, as a company, can continue helping serving our customers?

Lindsey Hall

It's interesting what you said about you're ready to roll up your sleeves and execute similar to what I heard earlier this week, I interviewed Benjamin Ware, the Global Head of Climate and Sustainable Sourcing at Nestlé, and he said something akin to that like, “I'm tired of talking about the commitments. Let's execute.” What does execution on your climate transition plan look like for Zurich Insurance?

Linda Freiner

The glamorous part of it or the less glamorous part?

Lindsey Hall

Let's say both.

Linda Freiner

Look, I think starting with the operations part is, of course, okay, we've really reduced air travel, prioritizing to see our customers, but between colleagues, we can speak online. We have those channels now that we can do so. We need to transition our fleet. But hey, wait, actually, infrastructure in many companies are not really growing as fast as we would have thought for -- to be able to transition to EVs. What do we do about that?

So very practical problems. Similarly, on our insurance side, we have set a target to engage with 450 of our commercial customers by 2030. That's a dialogue. It's a lot of research around, okay, so how does these companies' transition plans look like? I mentioned what are the investments that they're making, how can we be a better partner as their insurer in that transition?

Oh, they're going to have this technology. Okay. So how do we change and how do we update our underwriting practices to be able to support them? Or on the investment side, we have a target to invest 10% of our assets in climate solutions. We've invested a lot in green bonds.

And some of them are maturing now and we say, okay, “So what is going to be the next asset class that we can invest in? Or how can we encourage companies to continue at creating green bonds so that we can invest in them and support them in the transition.” So it's really about, okay, so what's the levers that we have as an insurance company and what's going on around us and how can we help be a driver of change in that ecosystem?

Lindsey Hall

And you described how in Switzerland, it's been a pretty consistent approach to climate and sustainability, not necessarily true in other parts of the world like in the U.S. where I'm coming from. What are you hearing from your clients and your stakeholders in other parts of the world?

Linda Freiner

I think as any business -- I mean, any business is looking from regulators' consistency and cross-border alignment. And we are facing a situation where we don't have as much of that anymore. So as a global business, you just have to adapt to where you are being present. But in the end, being true to what your strategy, what your purpose is as a company, but making sure that you always act in line with local laws and regulation.

And I think even within a big country like the U.S., there's also very different from a state level perspective as well that you have to adapt to. Insurance is regulated on a state basis. So we also have to adapt to that. But I think it's just part of being a global business today and you see where the opportunities are and where you can really play. But I have to say, overall, when we talk to our customers and the companies we invest in, I mean, these are real risks, and we don't see a big shift away from it because we have to manage.

If you want to be a company who wants to be around for -- like us for another 150 years at least, then you have to adapt and you have to manage those. I think we're moving from very much, yes, the targets and the commitments to, okay, we need to improve. This is good risk management.

Lindsey Hall

Are there any key takeaways or highlights from your Climate Week Zurich so far that you'd like to share with our listeners?

Linda Freiner

Look, yesterday, it was all about climate resilience for me and a lot of discussions around the role of finance, banks and insurance, but also when it comes to smaller investment funds trying to fund the next nature-based solutions and how can these big dragons like us, institutional investors really support that. So it's been a lot around that. Today, we talked about sustainability reporting, what's going to be the next dimension of this and how do companies adapt to the ever-ending long list of acronyms like GRI, ISSB, CSRD, TCFD, TNFD.

So that's another piece. But of course, also the discussion around AI, energy has also been super insightful for me and where the next investments are going to make and also how the technology around AI data centers are becoming much, much more efficient. And that in the long term, we will hopefully have data centers that are actually much, much more energy efficient than they are today.

Lindsey Hall

Okay. Great. And for our audience, I'll just -- you're going to test me on my acronyms, but we've got the GRI, Global Reporting Initiative, ISSB, International Sustainability Standards Board, CSRD, Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. TNFD, Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, TCFD, Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.

Linda Freiner

You've got a 10 out of 10.

Lindsey Hall

Thank you so much. We try to define all our acronyms on this but I find…

Linda Freiner

There's a lot.

Lindsey Hall

So many. I feel like I'm learning new ones everyday. Linda, I've asked you lots of questions. What have I not asked? What do you want to get across to our global podcast audience? There's so much we could talk about.

Linda Freiner

Yes. I think we have to as sustainability practitioners and also just managing a lot of data, as I mentioned, we do need to not forget about this risk perspective that we're managing long-term risks. And yes, it's complex, but we should not be frightened by the long-term nature of this and how complicated it is and how everything is connected because in the end, the only way that you can eat an elephant, it’s piece by piece, right?

So I think for companies out there today, it's important to really start with what are the most material risks for your company from a short- to medium- to long-term basis and start there. And then everything will connect itself. So don't get too scared by this whole resilience systems, complexity, risks compounding, start with one thing at the time.

Lindsey Hall

That's a nice tangible piece of advice. Do you have any advice for our sustainability-minded audience that might be in other parts of the world and struggling with what's kind of a difficult landscape for sustainability professionals right now?

Linda Freiner

Yes. Look, you have to operate as a global business in many cases. And you're so dependent both in your supply chain, upstream and then downstream with your customers and your clients. But really as sustainability professionals, I think we have the privilege to think long term.

And then we can look a bit longer than the next strategic cycle of the company. So be a partner with your company and trying to help to navigate that. Do not get too bogged down into the next reporting cycle, but really try to look a bit longer in the longer horizon.

And also, don't forget that as a sustainability professional, you often have the privilege to look across many different dimensions of your company from people management to -- we mentioned supply chains, we mentioned products and services, to financial reporting as well and how that links to sustainability. And that is a great broad view that not many professionals in the company gets to have. So also, really leverage that perspective of knowing a bit about everything and then looking into the long term.

Lindsey Hall

I love that. That is sort of the ethos behind the name of this podcast, All Things Sustainable because we believe you need to bring sustainability to all parts of the business and all parts of the business ecosystem. So Linda, thank you so much for sitting down with me today.

Linda Freiner

Yes. Thank you. It was a pleasure, and thanks so much again for having me.

Lindsey Hall

Thanks for joining us for this special Climate Week Zurich episode of the All Things Sustainable podcast. We'll be back with more coverage tomorrow. So please stay tuned. Thanks for tuning into this episode of All Things Sustainable. If you like what you heard, please subscribe, share and leave us a review whenever you get to podcasts.

Esther Whieldon

And a special thanks to our agency partner, the One Nine Nine. See you next time.