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2023 marks the third year that CSAA Insurance Group has issued an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report. Over that time, I have occasionally been asked by friends, colleagues and CEOs at other companies what prompted us to evolve from reporting on corporate social responsibility to an ESG model largely created for investors to better understand potential investments.
While CSAA is not a public company, the ESG framework provides an effective structure for reporting to our customers, employees, vendors, regulators, and other stakeholders. It helps us to prioritize what matters most, capture data on where we are succeeding and where we need to work harder and add transparency to the process.
For an insurer, the Environmental aspect is critical. It is a business imperative, given the role we play in helping policyholders who experience losses due to climate-related impacts. With increasing frequency and severity of wildfires, hurricanes, and other weather events, it is incumbent on the industry to work to reduce the effects of climate change.
These efforts have intersected with the shift to remote work, and we now include emissions associated with home offices in reporting on our progress toward achieving decarbonization. We are happy to report 45% emissions reduction from our 2016 baseline, inclusive of Scopes 1, 2 and 3 (business travel, employee commute, and home offices).
The Social part of ESG is a constant reminder that our business is about the people who make up our company and whom we serve. We want to ensure that CSAA provides a welcoming and rewarding environment for our increasingly diverse team and ensure that they can take pride in their work and their employer as we compete for talent. We strive to do good within our walls and in the communities where we do business.
In 2022 we devoted significant effort to the Future of Work, an exciting initiative to rethink how the working world is going to look moving forward. This work spans everything from employee choice of workplace (office, home, or hybrid) and development of long-term skills to shaping our culture in terms of how we connect, create and collaborate. Learn more about this initiative on page 27.
Governance has historically been an area of strength for CSAA, and ESG reporting helps ensure it remains so. When governance is working, it is easy to assume no change is required. While that can be true, the ESG framework forces us to take a hard look at whether we can improve existing practices. As technology continues to evolve, so do threats and solutions, and CSAA takes every effort to be vigilant about these changes.
Governance saw significant advancements across everything from data privacy to compliance, but most notable is the filing of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). We consider climate change a top risk and are working to integrate climate impacts into our planning across all aspects of our business. Adopting recommendations from our TCFD report will help us better prepare for impacts to our business and policyholders.
As you can see, ESG reporting helps us be a better CSAA because it reminds us of who we are and provides a framework to share our progress and vision for a better future across everything we do.
Thomas M. Troy
President and Chief Executive Officer