Meeting Nature's Challenge

We committed to being net zero by 2050 across our value chain and signed up to the Net Zero Insurance Alliance. 

As part of our refreshed Climate Action Plan, we committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 across our value chain, including with suppliers and customers, and to a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030. To reach these goals we are developing updated science-based targets and supporting net zero roadmap, which will be released in the coming months. 

We also recently joined the United Nations convened Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), alongside 28 other leading insurers around the world. NZIA members aim to transition their insurance underwriting portfolios to net-zero emissions by 2050, in alignment with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Our membership will help us to develop and contribute to methodologies and strategies for measuring and reducing our underwriting emissions. 

We helped 16 of our suppliers to measure and understand their carbon emissions for the first time, by providing free access to Toitū Carbon Assess.

As an insurer, we have a wide range of suppliers, many of them small and medium sized businesses, helping us to support our customers through the claims process. The Carbon Assess tool from Toitū Envirocare is specifically designed to help small enterprises start measuring their carbon emissions, and for large companies like IAG to better understand their Scope 3 supply chain emissions.

Feedback from the 16 suppliers who completed the trial, a mix of motor repairers, construction companies and other claims suppliers, was overwhelmingly positive, both in terms of the process itself, and how it will help them to start reducing their emissions. We partnered with Toitū Envirocare to provide the suppliers with some advice on how to start their emissions reduction journey. Our AMI community partner Habitat for Humanity was also given free access to the tool to start their carbon measurement journey.

In April we released our first Wild Weather Tracker, a new, regular analysis of insurance claims data, to help people prepare and protect themselves from wild weather.

The tracker brings to life the increase in severe weather we have been seeing over recent years by compiling trends over the past ten years and providing in-depth analysis of the six-month period between September 2021 and February 2022. It shows a clear upwards trend in wild weather over the past decade, and provides case studies on the Timaru hailstorm, the Lake Ohau fire, and the Westport flood.

The intention of the tracker, which will be released every six months, is to help people understand the impacts climate change is having on their communities and be able to better prepare. As well as claims and event data, the tracker also includes advice for people about what to do before, during and after an event, to mitigate the impacts and keep themselves safe. 

We are delivering on our commitment to transition our vehicle fleet to all electric and hybrid vehicles, through our EV Early Adopter programme and hybrid rollout.

Since August last year, six of our NZI employees have been part of our EV Early Adopter programme, using Hyundai Ioniqs as their tool of trade vehicles and providing insights and feedback on the experience. It has been overwhelmingly positive both for the drivers and for our carbon emissions, with a more than 80% reduction in emissions for these drivers compared to when they were driving petrol vehicles. We have since started trialling the Hyundai Konas for some of our longer-range drivers, with plans to roll out more later this year. During the year, we also added 31 hybrids to the fleet, and by the end of the calendar year we expect at least 30% of our fleet to be electrified.

We have been talking to our customers about EVs, the things to consider when adding EVs into corporate fleets, and sharing what we have learnt so far. We have also been sharing learnings with other corporates through the Sustainable Business Council’s Clean Car Accelerator Group. 

We released our fifth annual climate change poll and looked back to see how New Zealanders’ expectations and actions have changed.

For the past five years we have been asking New Zealanders about their attitudes towards climate change and how the country should adapt to its impacts. This year we looked back across the five years of results to see what has changed, what hasn’t and what that says about the way forward.

Overall, New Zealanders are saying that the importance of this issue is not matched by the leadership, action or progress that is needed if we are all to successfully adapt to the inevitable impacts of our changing climate.  They are saying these impacts are serious and growing, and that the issue is important. But while they are prepared to act, they do not know what to do and so are not taking action. They want the financial signals but not the costs of change. They expect the Government to lead but are not seeing that leadership.  And they are not confident that the country’s response is on the right track.

We celebrated a decade of being carbon neutral and are continuing to expand and improve our carbon emissions reporting.

We were early adopters of corporate carbon reporting, as we have been measuring and assuring our carbon footprint since 2002. In 2012 we made a commitment to offset all our Scope 1, Scope 2, and measured Scope 3 emissions and have now been carbon neutral for ten years. We have achieved this through a combination of local and international credits, with a focus on offsetting emissions in the jurisdictions in which we operate. 

We have seen significant emissions reductions in recent years due to property consolidation and also the impact of Covid-19. This year we have added additional reporting for staff working from home emissions, which has seen our overall footprint increase. However, our Scope 1 and 2 emissions (from our vehicle fleet, LPG and electricity use) have reduced by 14% since FY21. 

We released our Climate and Disaster Resilience Action Plan, outlining the goals and commitments that will drive IAG’s action on climate change and disaster resilience over the next three years, with a focus on Rethinking Risk, Transforming the System and Driving to Zero.

We launched a new Trans-Tasman Climate Action Employee Network Group, a community of IAG people that are committed and passionate about climate action and will help drive awareness and initiatives.

Our IAG Christchurch team saved 355kg of carbon emissions and took out the #1 spot for the second year in a row in the Aotearoa Bike Challenge, with IAG riders in Auckland and Wellington also participating.

We helped launch and are co-chairing a new Climate Adaptation Working Group with the Sustainable Business Council (SBC) and Climate Leaders Coalition (CLC) and were also on the steering group that created the new CLC Statement of Ambition.