Message from the Chairman
Building resilience in times of crisis
The Swiss Re Foundation entered the first year of its new strategic cycle, sharpening its focus on advancing climate and health resilience through entrepreneurial and locally grounded approaches. In line with this, we took deliberate steps to strengthen the effectiveness and reach of our portfolio. Over the course of 2025, we streamlined our active projects, enabling deeper engagement with partners and a more targeted deployment of resources in support of our increased ambition to strengthen the resilience of two million people in low-income communities by 2027.
In health, extended partnerships such as CARDIO4Cities in Brazil and Colombia, demonstrate how cross-sector collaboration can strengthen public health systems and improve outcomes at scale, particularly in urban settings where the burden of non-communicable diseases is rising rapidly.
In climate, our work with anticipatory action and climate adaptation models, such as the START Network in Philippines and Bangladesh, highlights how early warning systems, combined with pre-arranged financing and strong partnerships, are bringing together humanitarian, development and insurance perspectives to deliver meaningful impact while underscoring the role of insurance in playing a de-risking component within more inclusive climate risk finance.
We are particularly encouraged by the growing momentum around nature-based solutions. In 2025, we expanded our engagement in this space, including in urban contexts, where climate risks are becoming increasingly concentrated and visible. As cities face rising exposure to heat, flooding and environmental degradation, nature-based solutions offer a critical pathway to enhance resilience while delivering broader environmental and social benefits.
Complementing these efforts, we reinforced our commitment to evidence-based learning through five published impact evaluations, deepening our understanding of outcomes and sharing insights to inform more effective resilience-building efforts across the ecosystem.
A defining element of the Foundation’s value proposition is access to Swiss Re’s expertise, enabling entrepreneurial solutions to scale with greater confidence and clarity. This is exemplified by our global flagship initiative, Shine, which continues to bridge the gap between innovation and scale. During the year, Shine sharpened its focus on early-stage climate solutions, expanded its footprint to Southeast Asia, and established a clearer pathway to unlock growth through structured technical assistance. The Changemakers Africa initiative, in partnership with Bridge for Billions, further strengthened our support to early-stage social enterprises by expanding access to focused mentoring grounded in Swiss Re’s expertise.
The year also marked a record for employee volunteering, with the highest level of engagement to date reflecting a strong and growing commitment across Swiss Re to contribute skills, time and expertise to resilience-building efforts.
Together, these efforts reflect a Foundation that is evolving with clarity of purpose combining innovation, appropriate risk-taking, trust-based partnerships and actionable learnings to help make the world more resilient.
