The Chief Executive Officer of Zurich insurance Marco Greco has signalled that he’s ready to enter into talks with Extinction Rebellion (XR) and members of the Insure Our Future (IOF) coalition after a week of protest that saw his business among those targeted.

Greco has contacted XR and other IOF members to set up a second meeting to talk about his company’s decision to keep greenlighting climate-wrecking oil and gas projects by continuing to insure them.  

XR had a first meeting with Zurich’s Chief Sustainability Officer last week in response to our letter warning that her business could face protests unless it met our three demands, which included immediately refusing to ensure new and expanding oil and gas projects, infrastructure and operations.

Although those talks were constructive, it quickly became clear that Zurich had no plans to transition away from fossil fuels with the urgency the climate and ecological emergency requires. For this reason, we went ahead and targeted Zurich during our week of actions.

Since then, XR marched, disrupted, infiltrated, occupied and made some incredible physical and digital noise around insurance offices across the City of London. 

Extinction Rebellion spokesperson Pete Knapp said:

“Our voices and our protests are clearly being heard at the highest levels of the insurance industry and we look forward to further talks with the Zurich CEO and his senior team.

“Zurich is nowhere near to meeting our demand for a complete and immediate withdrawal from new oil and gas projects. But they have at least had the courage to engage with us and agree to talk.

“We would invite the other 40 insurance businesses on our target list to engage with us too. They have the power to pull the plug on the fossil fuel industry that is driving and accelerating climate and ecological breakdown. It’s time to talk to us about how and when they will use that power.

“We are inviting all insurance industry workers to come to a community assembly especially for insurance workers to talk in a safe space. We want to hear from the insurers themselves about how we can all work together to build an insurance industry that will safeguard a better future for all of us, rather than insure a future of climate chaos.” More information about the Insurance Assembly: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/act-now/campaigns/insurance-assembly/