From strategic intent to capturing the real value of sustainability
Over the past few years, sustainability has evolved from a regulatory or reputational focus to becoming a critical management lever and an axis for generating value. In Spain, the main insurers already consider sustainability as a strategic lever. Large entities have incorporated governance, risk management and reporting structures that are now part of their DNA. All have established decarbonization objectives in their financed emissions and have been incorporating “green” products, although they are not yet material in the income statement.
Despite these advances, most companies are still unable to achieve true cross-cutting integration of sustainability into the business. According to United Nations, 9 out of 10 CEOs globally consider sustainability a key business opportunity. In addition, 96% of CEOs consider that innovation and technology are essential to advance the sustainability agenda, but only 26% place them among their main strategic priorities.
Capturing the value of sustainability
But what does it mean to capture value in sustainability?
Below we show the characteristics of the insurers that achieve this.
The leading insurer of the future will be the leader in impact. Those who take the first step with ambition will be able to position themselves as strategic actors of the new paradigm: resilient, reliable and attractive.
These companies prioritize purpose and the long term without penalizing annual objectives. They will provide services based on care, listening to the new needs of customers and offering the solutions they really need, carrying out permanent innovation in their portfolio of products and services. They take care of the value chain, being fair to all their stakeholders and ensuring the impact on all of them. They promote the energy transition, opening up new lines of business, and will be disseminating and influential, capable of conquering symbolic territory in the mind of the market. In addition, they are consolidated as reference employers, promoting accessibility and inclusion, making sustainability a real catalyst for innovation, development and value creation.
Las opportunities are obvious. These companies improve NPS, building customer loyalty through an emotional connection. They identify early business opportunities by leading new markets. They are more resilient and reliable to investors. They attract and retain talent and promote internal well-being as an engine of productivity.
As can be seen, this value capture means a structural change in the company, where innovation and new business models play a crucial role.
WHAT CHALLENGES EXIST AND HOW TO ADDRESS THEM
As in all major changes of the era (such as the digital revolution), transformation requires complex decisions: engaging the entire organization to rewrite the business case, establishing a roadmap with a long-term vision, and all this in a volatile, uncertain, highly competitive and technologically disruptive market. The risk is that it will win in the short term and sustainability is treated as a side project with marginal and sometimes questioned budgets.
To unlock this value, sustainability must stop being peripheral. It needs to become a business engine. To do this, it must be addressed from four fundamental fronts:
- Operate from the purpose. Aligning strategic priorities with our own territory: the caregiver insurance company.
- Choose strategic battles. Not everything can be a priority. Each business plan must incorporate environmental and social factors from the design, as an integral part of the opportunity and profitability analysis adjusted to the reality of the business.
- Test, learn and scale. Real transformations are not born of big plans, but of agile pilots that allow us to learn quickly, fail cheaply and scale with intelligence.
- What is not measured is not managed. Without data there is no learning. Without learning, there is no scaling. And without scaling, there is no transformation.
Sustainability cannot continue to be an accessory to reputation and compliance. Along with artificial intelligence, it's the next big one engine of differentiation and growth.
