The Race to Renewables: Decoding the Competitive Dynamics Reshaping Energy Insurance

The energy transition is underway, and the insurance industry is at a crossroads.

The Race to Renewables: Decoding the Competitive Dynamics Reshaping Energy Insurance

The energy transition is underway, and the insurance industry is at a crossroads. The global renewable insurance market has grown 9% annually since 2020, while the fossil fuel sector has contracted 2% each year over the same period—but the pace of annual growth in renewable premiums is still half of the 18% benchmark that the IEA 2030 net zero pathway suggests may be required.

Join Grant Hauber, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA)’s Asia Strategic Energy Finance Advisor and Gwilym Pugh, co-founder of Planet Protections, a UK-based ethical insurance company, to discuss the race to insure the fast-growing renewable energy market, decode the competitive dynamics reshaping energy insurance and learn which strategic moves will define market leaders by 2030.

About the Speakers

Paul Carroll

Paul Carroll is the editor-in-chief of Insurance Thought Leadership.

He is also co-author of A Brief History of a Perfect Future: Inventing the Future We Can Proudly Leave Our Kids by 2050 and Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn From the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years and the author of a best-seller on IBM, published in 1993.

Carroll spent 17 years at the Wall Street Journal as an editor and reporter; he was nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize. He later was a finalist for a National Magazine Award.

Gwilym Pugh

Gwilym’s journey from environmental scientist to insurance innovator began in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Standing among the world’s most incredible biodiversity, then witnessing devastating destruction within the span of an hour, he realized the urgent need to redirect the insurance industry’s trillion-pound investment power towards protecting our planet.

With a first-class degree in environmental science and two decades in financial services, Gwilym combines scientific insight with practical expertise to revolutionize how insurance works. His previous success includes building multiple financial services and insurance companies – but this time, he’s driven by a bigger mission.

As a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, WWF UK ambassador, and speaker at COP26, Gwilym is committed to proving that finance can be a force for good. Through Planet Protection, he’s turning that vision into reality, one policy at a time.

Grant Hauber

Grant provides strategic advice on energy and financial markets for IEEFA’s Asia Pacific team. With an emphasis on the region’s emerging markets, he provides insights into project finance, multilateral development institutions, and implementing the energy transition. Grant leverages his background as an engineer and project developer to objectively assess energy technologies, whether renewables, fossil, or emerging sources such as hydrogen and ammonia.

Grant’s experience spans over 30 years in 30 different countries, covering energy markets and infrastructure public-private partnerships (PPP). He has garnered expertise as a project developer in both renewable and conventional electricity, a project finance investment banker, and energy asset strategist. More recently, he served as a Principal at the Asian Development Bank in Manila, spearheading creation of the bank’s PPP Operational Plan and advising governments across South and Southeast Asia how to integrate PPP principles into their public investment planning.

Grant holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. He is currently based in Buffalo, New York.

Grant previously served on the advisory board to Greater Boston's Metropolitan Area Planning Council supporting design of the region's long-term development plan, MetroCommon 2050. Being an avid cyclist as well as an infrastructure policy wonk, as part of his support of MetroCommon 2050, Grant has visited all 101 municipalities and ridden across every one of the 1,900 mi2 (4,600 km2) of the Greater Boston Metropolitan Statistical Area, whether on road or trail.