Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues have stormed onto the boardroom agenda across the insurance industry in the last year. Systemic global issues, from climate change to COVID and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, mean that ESG is a topic that is here to stay.

The topic is complex for (re)insurers. For consumer goods companies such as Unilever, who integrated ESG into their strategies early on, the benefits are obvious: Reduce your production inputs and risk and you create a lower cost, more resilient business, with a nice brand story to boot. But for (re)insurers the topic is less clear-cut. Insurance is not a heavily polluting industry and its employees do not work in dangerous conditions. Clearly, plenty can be done on issues such as gender, but insurance’s direct contribution to issues such as carbon emissions is negligible.

Does that mean the industry can stand aside? Certainly not.

As Bermuda looks to its future, the Bermuda Business Development Agency and Oxbow Partners have jointly coordinated this study in the belief that greater transparency over ESG activity in the market will allow all members of the Bermudian ecosystem to refine and accelerate their strategies.