Swiss Re alleged to have insured illegally deforested farmland in Brazil

Swiss Re, an insurance coverage group primarily based in Zurich, was discovered to have taken out at the very least 19 insurance policies from 2016 to 2022 for giant farms which have been confirmed by authorities to have undergone unlawful deforestation, in response to Public Eye, a non-government organisation involved with sustainability.

The investigative group Repórter Brazil launched a report which alleges that Swiss Re profited from insurance coverage insurance policies made on these illegally deforested lands in Brazil. From the info it gathered, it was discovered that Swiss Re was ranked fourth within the earlier yr for agricultural contracts that had been concluded as a part of a state subsidy program.

The whole space that was insured by this system was 659,000 hectares. This included Manto Verde, a 2,400-hectare farm, on which the (re)insurance coverage group had taken out 17 insurance coverage insurance policies since 2016. Nonetheless, Manto Verde had lengthy been declared a restricted space by the authorities as a result of unlawful deforestation.

Repórter Brazil had additionally documented instances the place Swiss Re had concluded insurance coverage contracts with farms that illegally cultivated indigenous protected areas and used armed violence, with one shopper being a defendant in a homicide case when he took out three insurance coverage insurance policies. One other shopper was underneath investigation for allegedly utilizing slave labour on his espresso farm.

Swiss Re’s sustainability report within the earlier yr talked about that the group aimed to neutralize its greenhouse fuel emissions by 2050. Nonetheless, Observatório do Clima acknowledged that Swiss Re had ignored local weather coverage accountability in its transactions in Brazil, because the nation had gross emissions from deforestation in 2021 that exceeded these of a rustic like Japan.

Repórter Brazil’s analysis was financed by the Investigation Award, a grant by the Public Eye that aimed to help media professionals and NGOs in investigating the actions of Swiss corporations in creating international locations and what they might entail in terms of human rights violations, environmental injury, or monetary crimes.

The report was ready by André Campos, Naira Hofmeister, Gil Alessi, France Júnior, Ruy Sposati, Carolina Motoki and Bruna Bronoski.

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