Insurance-associated emissions (PCAF standard)
A market method that attributes to an insurer a share of the greenhouse gas emissions of the companies and vehicles it insures, in proportion to the premium.
Insurers have long measured the emissions of the companies whose securities they hold; the emissions they enable by insuring remained off the books. The standard published by the PCAF partnership attributes them in proportion to the premium received relative to the insured's revenue, for large commercial risks and personal motor. The result is a category of the insurer's scope 3, distinct from the financed emissions of its investments. It makes decarbonization commitments comparable that had covered different scopes until then, but it does not measure the real effect of declining to insure, since a declined risk can be insured elsewhere.
PCAF, a partnership launched in 2015 by Dutch financial institutions and global since 2019, published in November 2022, during COP27, its standard on insurance-associated emissions, prepared with insurers that belonged to the Net Zero Insurance Alliance.
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