HanseMerkur joins the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance
Hamburg, July 12, 2021. HanseMerkur is taking the next step in its commitment to a more sustainable financial system and will be part of the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance (AOA) convened by the United Nations in 2019. The aim of this network of the world’s largest capital investors is to reduce the CO2 emissions of their entire investment portfolio to net zero by 2050.
By investing its assets in a climate-neutral way, the AOA is focusing in particular on the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement. This provides for global warming to be limited to 1.5 degrees compared to the pre-industrial age. The AOA has more than 40 major institutional investors, including banks, insurance companies and pension funds. Together they manage around $ 7 trillion in assets.
“We can only counter climate change effectively on a global level and in joint initiative. In the holistic approach of the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance lies the strength to live up to our responsibility as a financial sector. HanseMerkur is a mutual insurance company that has stood for responsible business conduct for around 150 years. We also see our commitment to sustainability as an expression of our lived values of community and intergenerational equity, ”says Eberhard Sautter, CEO of HanseMerkur, explaining the motivation for joining the AOA. The philosophy of the Hamburg company is to support its stakeholders in the transformation as best as possible and to work closely together to shape the change to a low-emission economy.
As part of this, HanseMerkur and its asset management subsidiary HanseMerkur Trust AG signed the six United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) as early as 2020. This year another subsidiary followed with HanseMerkur Grundbesitz AG. With this, the companies commit themselves to an investment behavior that takes into account the financial relevance of ecological and social criteria as well as questions of good corporate governance.
About the HanseMerkur Insurance Group
With an annual turnover of 2.6 billion euros (2020), HanseMerkur is the only independent and group-independent insurance group in the Hamburg financial center. The 146-year-old personal insurer’s roots lie in health insurance, which is still the company’s main line of business today. HanseMerkur is also a specialist in private supplementary protection for those with statutory health insurance and, with around 1.3 million additional insured persons (2020) in this segment, one of the largest German providers. In addition, with premium income of 160 million euros (2020) in the travel and leisure segment, it is one of the market-leading companies in the tourism insurance industry. Further information at www.hansemerkur.de