Zurich launches partnership with Marine Conservation Society to help save Britain’s seabeds

Zurich customers are now supporting the largest seagrass recovery operation in England to help save vital seabed habitats around our coasts as part of a new initiative with the Marine Conservation Society.

Funds raised by Zurich customers will support seagrass recovery and other essential work, engaging and educating communities on the benefits of effective protection for biodiversity and climate.

For every customer that claims for escape of water or flood damage over the next year, Zurich will donate to the Marine Conservation Society’s recovery projects to recover one square metre of seagrass.

Based on past claims data Zurich expects to sustain the recovery of more than 10,000 square meters of seagrass over 12 months, equivalent to 51 tennis courts, with the aim of developing a longer-term relationship with the MCS in the coming years.

In addition to the escape of water and flood claim donations, Zurich’s UK Corporate Risk group will support the initiative later in the year by donating to the Marine Conversation Society for every new customer that purchases a product on its soon to be launched digital platform.

As part of its commitment to sustainability Zurich Municipal, the group’s public and voluntary sector arm, will also make a of £30,000 donation over three years to the MCS.

Zurich funding will contribute to restoring seabeds around Falmouth, Plymouth and the Solent, among other locations. The current and future seagrass within these areas will be able to sequester some 1,127 tonnes of carbon each year.

Any funding which exceeds the amount needed for these areas will go towards further seagrass and carbon storing ocean recovery projects with the MCS.

Why is seagrass so important?

Healthy seagrass beds can absorb around a tenth of the ocean’s carbon each year and provide habitats for many endangered species. Sadly, seagrass habitats have been damaged and degraded over the past century due to dredging and pollution, reducing by 92%¹ .

Seagrass in the United Kingdom provides nursery and breeding grounds for fish such as cod, plaice and sharks, as well as providing a habitat for endangered wildlife including stalked jellyfish, short snouted seahorses and spiny or ‘long snouted’ seahorses.

Many smaller creatures including whelks, snails, peacock worms and common periwinkles also call seagrass home.

Anne Weinhold, corporate partnerships team lead at the Marine Conservation Society, said:

“It’s fantastic to have the support of the Zurich Insurance Group for the vital LIFE Recreation ReMEDIES seabed recovery project on the UK’s south coast.

“Our ocean recovery projects support the health of our blue planet through protecting and recovering underwater habitats. This funding from Zurich will really help us make a difference.

“Seagrass has a vital role to play in combatting the climate crisis, not only by locking up huge amounts of carbon, but also stabilising the sand around exposed coasts and protecting beaches from erosion.”

John Keppel, chief sustainability officer at Zurich, said:

“Businesses must do more to reduce their carbon footprint and at Zurich we are committed to reducing our CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) per employee by 20% by 2025 compared to 2015 levels. We also continue to plant trees on behalf of our policyholders, having so far planted over half a million in areas of deforestation.

“Marine conservation is a vital pillar in the fight against climate change. Nine tenths of British seagrass habitats have tragically disappeared, but Zurich and our customers are now helping to put this right. As well as absorbing carbon and providing a habitat for wildlife, the seagrass planted will also help to fight coastal erosion and build flood resilience.”

¹ www.mcsuk.org/news/protecting-seagrass-in-plymouth-sound/

Notes for editors

• Some seagrass species can take carbon from the atmosphere up to 35 times faster than tropical rainforests.
• Seagrass, which covers about 0.1% of the ocean globally but provides 18% of its carbon storage, is shrinking by 7% each year – equivalent to a football pitch worth vanishing every 30 minutes, according to a 2020 UN report .
• Seagrass protects coasts from storms and coastal erosion.
• Zurich funding will be used for Marine Conservation Society’s ocean recovery work, including match funding to support the Marine Conservation Society’s work on the LIFE Recreation ReMEDIES project funded by the EU LIFE programme and led by Natural England in partnership with the Marine Conservation Society, Ocean Conservation Trust, Plymouth City Council/Tamar Estuaries Consultative Forum and Royal Yachting Association.
• Carbon statistics are from modelling of 1km square valuations of sedimentary carbon stocks in UK seabed sediments (from) Smeaton, C., Hunt, C.A., Turrell, W.R. and Austin, W.E., 2021. Marine sedimentary carbon stocks of the United Kingdom’s exclusive economic zone. Frontiers in Earth Science, p.50.
• According to the MCS blue carbon report, seagrass fixes and stores an estimated average 0.83 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year: https://www.mcsuk.org/documents/110/BlueCarbon_Report_cd4T2eP.pdf
• Find out more about LIFE Recreation ReMEDIES by following on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @EULIFERemedies, or visiting http://www.saveourseabed.co.uk/
• LIFE Recreation ReMEDIES is a £2.5 million, four-year marine conservation project to Save Our Seabed at five Special Areas of Conservation.