Zurich Insurance joins corporate squeeze on air travel to cut emissions

One of the world’s largest insurers Zurich has pledged to slash emissions from air travel, the latest big global employer to seize on working practices introduced during the pandemic to cut its carbon footprint. The Swiss company said Tuesday that from next year it would cut emissions generated from flights for employees to 70% below pre-pandemic levels, one of a number of changes designed to help the group meet an existing goal of halving its greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Zurich, which has its headquarters in the Swiss city and employs 55,000 people in more than 200 countries, said it would achieve the target by holding fewer internal meetings that involved travel, and continue to do more customer and investor meetings using video conference technology. “The experience of the global pandemic has shown us a pathway to improving many aspects of our daily and working lives, and there’s no going back,” CE Mario Greco said. The move by Zurich comes as airlines anxiously await the return of lucrative business travel. The pandemic has forced companies to overhaul how they do business, replacing face-to-face meetings with digital communication and cutting travel budgets. Some airline executives such as Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary are expecting a full recovery, while others such as Shai Weiss, Virgin Atlantic’s CE, are braced for a 20% reduction in the coming years. Several large European companies have said they will reduce business travel. The UK’s Lloyds Banking Group has pledged to keep carbon dioxide emissions from travel to under than 50% of 2019 levels, while Dutch bank ABN Amro is aiming to halve its air travel compared with 2017 over the next five years. Consultancies Deloitte and PwC, and consumer group Nestle, have also pledged to reduce travel.<br/>