My work in the field of sustainability was not foreseeable for a long time. After working for Baloise for around ten years as a team leader in property and liability claims, I took on a new challenge internally in 2019 as a product manager for liability. At the same time, sustainability also became increasingly important at Baloise. Thus, based on my knowledge and many years of experience within Baloise and the insurance industry, but also specifically in the areas of sustainability including Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), an opportunity arose for me to make another internal change. Helping to drive Baloise’s sustainability efforts was an opportunity I did not want to miss.

Insurers can play a prominent role in sustainability. The transition to a more sustainable economy is catalysed by making the flows of net investment income in our society more sustainable. This is precisely a part of the role of insurers: in addition to insuring individual risks, they also manage assets. The areas covered and affected by sustainability, including CSR, are broad and complex. New regulations and processes are constantly required to address all aspects of this issue. There are new regulations concerning disclosure, for example. How we integrate sustainability into our processes and the value we create as a result will be presented more transparently in the future. However, this requires different information and data to be collected in the various departments. Some of these data collection processes need to be built from scratch. The complexity makes the topic of sustainability very exciting, and for me it represents a big lever with which to make a difference at Baloise.

I am involved in a number and variety of sustainability-related projects that cover almost the entire value chain. This makes me a spider in the web, in contact with many departments. At the same time, much of my work is taken up by the Sustainability Disclosure Project (SDP), the most comprehensive project to define the legal requirements for disclosure under the EU Sustainable Finance Action Plan, greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting and net zero targets. I am also involved in integrating sustainability criteria into our underwriting policy. This means that certain economic activities will no longer be insured by us or that existing customers in these areas will be given a transitional period to align their business models in a sustainable manner. This topic is very close to my former work at Baloise, so it is very important to me that the project is implemented in a way that is understandable and effective for all parties involved.

The topic of sustainability and its projects affect both Baloise as a company and all employees. Therefore, clear and transparent communication is the key to success. Precisely because sustainability is currently often associated with innovation and change.

As an insurance company, we have an influence on the sustainable development of our company, the economy, society and the environment at various levels. From my perspective, there are three areas where Baloise has a lasting impact. For example, we have the ability to influence the behaviour of our customers through our insurance products and services. As an institutional investor, i.e. how we as Baloise invest our insurance money, we have an indirect influence on the behaviour of other companies. In my opinion, we have another major lever in terms of sustainability within the framework of our CSR activities, which are of great importance in Belgium in particular. As a member of society, we are all about “doing the right thing” and doing our part to create a sustainable society. We do this in Belgium with activities such as Baloise for Life.

The first step in my sustainability work is to create awareness of sustainability and to sensitise stakeholders to it. For example, on legal, financial or even operational topics. I see this as a necessary basis for successfully integrating sustainability issues into all areas of Baloise. A senior consultant for sustainability alone cannot make a company more sustainable – it is essential that everyone pulls together and for that everyone has to talk about the same things and have a common understanding of what needs to be done.

In my opinion, we still have a lot of potential to increase the visibility of Baloise’s social activities and sustainability efforts among all stakeholders. This visibility must be strengthened not only within Baloise, but also among the public, our customers, investors and other stakeholders. For me, it is not primarily about showing what Baloise does well as a company, but rather about creating awareness of the need for sustainability, raising awareness and, in particular, also showing how and where insurance companies like Baloise have leverage to drive the sustainable development of our economy.

Learn more about Baloise's sustainability efforts? Sustainability at Baloise in Belgium (NL/FR) and Baloise Group.