Baloise is committed to climate protection, and not just within its own value chain
Baloise employs a total of over 8,650 people and operates in Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg. As a forward-looking company, Baloise has set itself the goal of not only accepting social change, but actively helping to shape it.
As part of its climate policy, Baloise has been calculating its own CO2 emissions for many years, has been preparing a carbon footprint in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol for two years and assumes responsibility for unavoidable residual emissions by supporting climate projects in Switzerland and abroad.
Baloise has decided to take the next step and further develop its own climate commitment in line with best practice. In particular, the handling of residual emissions should be adapted to changing market conditions by weighing up the opportunities and risks of supporting innovative climate projects, among other things.
Participatory development of a Beyond Value Chain Mitigation Strategy (BVCM-Strategy) tailored to Baloise
In collaboration with Swiss Climate, Baloise has worked on a forward-looking and innovative BVCM-Strategy that is embedded in its own sustainability strategy and thus enjoys broad support within the company and across locations. The principles developed for the BVCM-Strategy fit in perfectly with Baloise's net zero strategy. At the same time, it supports its achievement by discussing and highlighting key aspects in connection with the purchase of certificates from climate projects. These include, for example
- Procurement criteria that reflect both an uncompromisingly high standard of quality and the values of Baloise itself.
- Financing solutions that ensure sustainable and long-term procurement and are geared towards forward-looking best practice.
- Opportunities and risks and their mitigation resulting from the procurement criteria and financing solutions.
Baloise worked with Swiss Climate to develop the necessary theoretical foundations through several discussions and presentations as well as a participatory workshop with the various sustainability managers from Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg. This will lead to well-founded, strategic decisions in the future.
Among other things, topics such as the following were jointly discussed, analysed and assessed their relevance for Baloise:
- Switzerland's climate strategy and that of Baloise,
- the definition of different terms and claims in connection with CO2 certificates,
- Climate protection activities such as removal, insetting or project development,
- Financing models,
- Opportunities and risks and their mitigation,
- Due diligence of climate protection projects and
- Intra-industry benchmarking
This collaboration with Swiss Climate enables Baloise to develop strategic insights for its climate strategy and refine it further in the future.
Support from Swiss Climate
Swiss Climate supported Baloise as an expert with technical input in the form of presentations, documentation and expert knowledge as well as final recommendations for action based on the results of the workshop.
As a long-standing and experienced player in the voluntary carbon market, Swiss Climate is familiar with the complexity and multi-layered nature of the market and knows the current framework conditions and developments that companies are confronted with inside out. As a project developer and verification and validation body for climate projects, Swiss Climate also has expertise in the methodologies and quality requirements.
The following Swiss Climate services were used in this project:
- BVCM-Strategy
- Strategy workshop
