French insurance giant Axa SA is ditching German energy company RWE AG over its continued commitment to coal, Bloomberg reported. Axa SA stopped insuring coal mines and coal-fired power plants last year in line with a company policy of not providing insurance to firms that dig up more than 20 million tons of coal annually. RWE mined 65 million tons of coal last year. It’s notable that Axa SA dropped RWE during Europe’s worst recession since World War II, even though RWE has committed to being carbon-neutral by 2040. The move shows how climate change has become an urgent concern for some businesses. “The insurance business is very concentrated,” Heffa Schuecking, a director of German environmental nonprofit Urgewald, told Bloomberg. “If a few big players exclude a company, everyone else knows it and the writing is on the wall that in the future you won’t be a welcome client at the other major insurers.” (Bloomberg $)