Making climate change manageable in an uninsurable world: the complex environmentalism of global reinsurers

In the political economy literature on business and climate change, fossil fuel interests have drawn more attention than climate-constructive business actors. We contend that the climate-related corporate strategies, political preferences and communication approaches pursued by ‘good’ business actors are key to enhancing our understanding of climate politics. Drawing on literatures in management and organisation studies that emphasise corporate contradictions, we argue that even corporate actors who stand to benefit from climate change engage in complex environmentalism. Focusing on the reinsurance sector with the two biggest players Swiss Re and Munich Re as key climate actors, we triangulate internal documents, expert interviews and quantitative text data. We find that reinsurers never feared the limits to insurability that climate change might impose, but embrace the business opportunities it presents. While guarding profitable markets from state intervention, they encourage governments to generate new markets. Their communication cautiously warns against manmade climate change but also optimistically emphasises the manageability of climate change. These results underscore the importance of a broader perspective on corporate environmentalism to understand how market economies absorb climate change.