Investment Initiatives
In May 2015 AXA’s Group CEO, Henri de Castries, announced that the company will remove around €500m (£355m) of coal investments from its portfolio by the end of this year, in a move that reflects long-term concerns in the insurance industry over climate change.
AXA has also pledged to triple its investments in green technologies and services to more than €3bn by 2020 and provide investors with more information on the risk to its investments from climate change. The below infographic outlines the actions taken by AXA to mitigate against climate change
Research and Engagement
The AXA Research Fund (ARF) was established in 2007 as a philanthropic endeavour designed to encourage academic research that contributes to greater understanding of risk. The ARF grants funding to academics engaged in three principal areas of risk: environmental, life and socio-economic.
To date, the ARF has contributed over €130m to almost 450 projects in over 30 different countries.
Through the ARF, AXA has also begun to combine with leading institutions to deliver Joint Research Initiatives. One such project is between AXA and UPMC - “Modelling the Flood Peril".
Flood events are difficult to predict and models used by academia and industry often provide poor indicators, especially on a small spatial scale. Looking at historical data and multiple flood factors such as water type, topography, weather patterns, this research collaboration between AXA and UPMC seeks to develop a finer modelling methodology that will be used to generate risk statistics and geographical risk ratings based on captured exposure data.
Green Corporate Practices
This year, AXA began their partnership with The Woodland Trust, Britain’s leading woodland conservation charity, to plant thousands of trees to achieve being carbon neutral on paper consumption by 2020.
The trees planted won’t only lock up AXA’s carbon emissions, but will also be helping to deliver resilient landscapes – resilient to the pressures of change, through protection from soil erosion and run off, wind damage and drought; protection against flooding; and reduction of air, water and soil pollution; and importantly also, supporting habitat for native wildlife.
Over the next six years this partnership will create over 100 acres of new native woodland in the UK, more than 56 football pitches of trees!