Revitalising our Oceans
No threat to human well-being requires more collective action than environmental degradation and climate risk. Whilst coastal ecosystems deliver irreplaceable climate adaptation and mitigation benefits , the coastal communities are also more likely to experience hurricanes or tropical storms, which they are least equipped to withstand and recover from.
We at the Swiss Re Foundation are committed to help countries and communities build their capacity to plan for, prepare and respond to natural disasters and see promise in ecosystem-based approaches to mitigating disaster and climate risk.
On this World Oceans Day, we celebrate the role of the oceans in our everyday life and inspiring action to protect the ocean and sustainably use marine resources. As a grant-making organization, we know we can only achieve the environmental impact we're aiming for through partnerships. Below are some key projects we are supporting for ocean resilience:
The Nature Conservancy: For reefs to protect coasts, humans must protect reefs
Coral reefs dramatically reduce the force of hurricanes and tropical storms and mitigate erosion and flooding. But they’re also dying from overfishing, development and pollution and are vulnerable to climate risk. has developed the first training programme for coastal dwellers who want to help conserve the coral reefs
From 2017 to 2019 we supported The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to develop the first training programme for coastal dwellers who want to help conserve the coral reefs in Quintana Roo, Mexico. TNC was able to demonstrate that its trainings of first response reef brigades are effective and that the brigades can deploy quickly with meaningful restoration results. This as Hurricane Delta, which hit the coast of Quintana Roo, in October 2020, officially triggered the world’s first ever coral reef insurance policy, which was developed by Swiss Re.
The goal of the project’s current phase (2019 to 2022) is to build post-storm reef response capacities across all four countries (Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala) bordering the Mesoamerican reef and to disseminate the approach to actors in other reef-bordering regions to ensure that these capacities can be maintained and further scaled.
Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance: Attracting investment in resilient coasts
Set up to address both the climate emergency and the biodiversity crisis, the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA) is uniquely placed to catalyse collaboration between finance, insurance, governments and civil society stakeholders to drive investment into coastal and marine natural capital. The Ocean Resilience Innovation Challenge, a cornerstone initiative of the Alliance, helps build a pipeline of community-led innovative, scalable and investable projects that help build coastal resilience and reduce ocean risk.
Drawing on the multi-sector expertise of ORRAA members and partners from around the world, the Challenge enables ORRAA to find, grow and scale promising solutions and to accelerate locally led innovation and investment to protect the ocean and communities that depend on it. The Swiss Re Foundation has supported the Challenge since 2021.
Conservation International: Mangroves pay their way
The Restoration Insurance Service Company, RISCO, is a business model for sustainably financing mangrove conservation and restoration, which relies on modeling the flood risk reduction and climate change mitigation benefits of mangroves and applies the knowledge and skills required to actually do the conservation and restoration work. RISCO aims to capture the economic value of threatened mangroves upfront through two revenue streams: (1) insurance-related payments for the modelled flood risk reduction benefits of mangroves and (2) blue carbon payments for the validated climate mitigation value of mangroves.
Our learnings
Across different projects, we see how small, collaborative steps can help society master much larger challenges and how nature can assist in its own protection. As initiatives in this space are very challenging and come with high cost of feasibility and first mobilization, we have realized that grant money is able to support in the early phase, and that for next phases the private sector is needed to scale pilot interventions. Bringing together human capacity and financial sustainability is vital to securing ocean resilience.