China Life Insurance: Deeply practice the concept of ESG and make greater contributions to China's modernization

From October 16th to 18th, the 2024 ESG Global Leaders Conference was held in Huangpu District, Shanghai. With the theme of "Promoting Global ESG Cooperation, Development and Win-Win", the conference discussed cutting-edge topics such as energy and carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, green finance, sustainable consumption, technology and public welfare. The conference was co-sponsored by CITIC Group and Sina Group, and co-organized by Sina Finance and CITIC Publishing Group.

Xu Chongmiao, Chief Compliance Officer of Chinese Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chinese Life Insurance Company"), attended the conference and delivered a speech on the theme of "ESG Strategy Leads the High-quality Development of Insurance Enterprises".

"ESG is the future development direction of financial enterprises, and it is an important starting point for the individual development of enterprises and the overall progress of society to achieve harmony and unity, which not only reflects the responsibility of enterprises to the public, but also the internal needs of realizing their own high-quality development." In her speech, Xu Chongmiao pointed out that "the insurance industry should follow the five principles of policy orientation, customer first, financial goodness, long-termism, and bottom-line thinking, actively seek ESG innovation, actively explore new market opportunities, and strive to provide better financial services while creating greater social value and promoting the high-quality development of the industry itself." ”

In recent years, Chinese Life Insurance Company has consistently performed well in governance and other aspects, and its operations have been stable and orderly. In terms of sustainable development, we pay attention to environmental protection and social responsibility, strive to create a sustainable business model, constantly pursue excellent quality, and continuously improve service levels, setting a good example for the industry and contributing to high-quality development.

Strengthen the construction of the governance system

Implement the ESG concept in the whole process of corporate management

Chinese Life Insurance Company continues to improve corporate governance and make sustainable development the endogenous driving force of the enterprise. The first is to build and develop an ESG and green finance governance system with Chinese life characteristics, and build a management structure in which the board of directors assumes the main responsibility. The second is to proactively manage the company's risks in the field of environmental, social and governance, and incorporate them into the company's comprehensive risk management system to improve the stability and continuity of the business. Third, we are committed to implementing the ESG concept in the whole process of corporate management, including strategy, corporate culture, system, and implementation strategy, and consolidating the construction of ESG ecological environment with management indicators such as incentive and restraint mechanisms.

Actively integrate into environmental construction

Deeply practice the concept of green development

With the environmental goal of "ensuring environmental health and friendliness and helping to achieve 'carbon neutrality'", we will help the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development.

On the liability side, we will give full play to the functions of risk-taking and loss compensation, and provide sufficient risk response solutions for the green industry. In recent years, Chinese Life Insurance Company has continued to improve the supply capacity of green insurance, and in the first half of 2024 alone, the amount of green insurance will reach 572.9 billion yuan.

Promote the company's development in a more sustainable and responsible direction through ESG investment, as a favorable bridge to join international competition and integrate into the international discourse. Therefore, on the one hand, Chinese life insurance companies actively implement and fully consider ESG factors in the whole investment process, and embed this concept from top to bottom. As early as 2018, the company's main investment platform, Chinese Life Asset Management Co., Ltd., became the first insurance asset management company in China to join the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment. On the other hand, by giving full play to the long-term and stable characteristics of patient capital of insurance funds, the company continued to increase investment in green industries such as clean energy, energy conservation and environmental protection, and pollution prevention and control, and as of the end of the first half of 2024, the company's green investment stock exceeded 470 billion yuan.

Implement the low-carbon concept in daily operations and business development, actively promote the construction of platform intelligence, and adopt advanced digital means to improve the efficiency of green operations. The company has strengthened the planning, organization, regulation and management of energy supply and the whole process of energy, and a number of office building projects have obtained LEED platinum certification, and the Shanghai data center has been selected as a "national green data center". We continued to improve the online, intensive and intelligent level of operation services, with a paperless application rate of nearly 100% for new individual long-term insurance policies and a 97% utilization rate for individual online claims, providing customers with convenient services while reducing carbon emissions.

Actively empower social development

Protect the people's happy and beautiful life

Explore the concept of ESG to empower traditional insurance business, provide a new track for high-quality development and transformation, and always adhere to the principle of insurance for the people and protect people's better life.

Actively explore the model of embedding ESG elements into the entire value chain of insurance business, focusing on key links such as product development, underwriting and claims, and health care services. Focusing on the immediate needs of the people, we have made efforts to create a diversified product system covering individual customers, corporate customers and strategic customers, explored the integration of "product + service", helped the construction of "Healthy China", and actively contributed to the national strategy of coping with the aging population. By the end of the first half of 2024, Chinese Life Insurance Company has undertaken more than 200 serious illness insurance projects, more than 70 policy-based long-term care insurance projects and more than 120 urban customized commercial medical insurance projects, of which the critical illness insurance will pay more than 11 million person-times in the first half of 2024, effectively reducing the burden of medical expenses on the people. In the first half of 2024, it will provide risk protection of 50.41 trillion yuan for 180 million rural people and pay more than 8.072 billion yuan to 2.31 million people. In terms of pension finance, the company strengthens the supply of diversified health pension insurance, and builds a diversified health pension product system including annuity, both, exclusive commercial pension, personal pension, health insurance, etc., and in 2023, the company's insurance premium income with pension attributes will exceed 400 billion yuan, making it the largest commercial pension insurance supplier in the industry. Actively build the ecology of China Life's characteristic health care services, carry out investment and professional operation of the health care industry, initiate the establishment of a total scale of 50 billion yuan of China Life Health Fund, 20 billion yuan of China Life Pension Fund and 10 billion yuan of silver economic industry investment fund, and has now laid out 17 institutional pension projects in 14 cities including Beijing, Suzhou, Tianjin, Xiamen and Chengdu, and invested in 63 innovative medical enterprises to build China Life's characteristic "insurance + health care service" ecology to provide customers with insurance and healthComprehensive solutions for the elderly.

Strengthen investment in the real economy, and strive to play a greater role in ensuring people's livelihood, promoting employment, and promoting innovation. By the end of the first half of 2024, the scale of investment in science and technology self-reliance and self-improvement of Chinese Life Insurance Company exceeded 320 billion yuan, and the scale of investment in serving the real economy exceeded 4.25 trillion yuan.

Adhere to the development idea of "people-centered", and strive to build a "simple and high-quality, warm" brand of "China Life Good Service". Up to now, it has provided more and more than 600 million customers with a better and better service experience, and the company ranks in the forefront of the life insurance industry in the evaluation of regulatory service quality index and consumer protection supervision, and the praise of third-party customers remains high.

Always take it as our responsibility to repay the society and actively participate in public welfare and charity. Continuously consolidating the long-term public welfare mechanism, persistently carrying out public welfare projects, and initiating the establishment of the first non-public foundation registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs in China, the Chinese Life Charity Foundation, which has donated funds to more than 1,100 orphaned children due to disasters for 16 consecutive years. Participate in building a sports power and support the National Youth Basketball Open; Promote the "100 Schools Sports Assistance Program" to help the development of rural education in underdeveloped areas; We will continue to hold the public welfare activity of "Art Returning to the Mountain" for Guoshou Little Painters to provide soil for the development of aesthetic education for urban and rural teenagers.

As the "head goose" of the domestic life insurance industry, Chinese Life Insurance Company has always been based on the long-term, anchored in the ESG strategic goal of "building a world-class and responsible life insurance company", adhering to the ESG strategic concept of "people-oriented, caring for life, creating value and serving the society", and constantly improving the sustainable development governance model with a win-win situation with the society. After years of hard work, the company has embarked on a "China Life ESG Road" with Chinese characteristics and in line with international standards. The company's ESG practices have also been widely recognized by all sectors of society, and it has received an A rating from MSCI, an international authoritative rating agency, and is in the leading echelon of the domestic life insurance industry. In recent years, it has successively won awards such as "ESG Green Company Star", "Forbes China ESG Innovation Enterprise" and "Annual Social Responsibility Excellence Award".

"'Building a world-class, responsible life insurance company' is not only our ESG strategic goal, but also our main responsibility and main business that we have always been down-to-earth and strive to develop. Looking ahead, we will continue to actively fulfill our economic, environmental and social responsibilities, continue to fulfill our original mission of 'serving the overall development of the country and safeguarding a better life for the people', and make greater contributions to China's modernization." Xu Chongmiao said.

It is understood that the ESG Global Leaders Conference has been successfully held for three times, and this year is the fourth. The conference aims to bring together global sustainable development forces, promote exchanges between governments, enterprises, academics and international institutions, promote international consensus and cooperation in the fields of environmental, social and corporate governance, and continuously stimulate new quality productivity with new achievements in green development.