Still plenty of room for improvement – Our article in the NZZ (Sustainable Switzerland)

A study conducted by the sustainability consultancy Sustainserv in collaboration with the University of Bern shows that Swiss companies are currently still focussing their sustainability efforts primarily on compliance requirements.

Green is the new black. Which company can still afford not to have a position on sustainability? However, gone are the days when companies had room for manoeuvre and could selectively curate content: Legislation has made corporate reporting on sustainability an obligation. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been hit particularly hard. This is because their sustainability management is usually not adequately equipped.

Meet standards

But even large companies in Switzerland still have some way to go, as a joint study by the management consultancy Sustainserv and Prof Dr Markus Arnold from the University of Bern shows. At the moment, Swiss companies are still focussing their sustainability efforts primarily on compliance requirements, i.e. they are geared towards the minimum requirements and have hardly anchored sustainability approaches in their corporate culture to date.

The study focuses on the organisation and implementation of sustainability, sustainability goals and associated key figures as well as reporting. Together with the University of Bern, Sustainserv investigated the level of maturity of Swiss companies’ sustainability efforts. The study conducted in 2023 clearly shows that the majority of companies have implemented sustainability strategies primarily to comply with legal and public standards. Many companies are also already investing in sustainability initiatives. In addition to fulfilling compliance regulations, the motives are to strengthen reputation and credibility. Depending on the industry, companies sometimes also identify and minimise risks, or it is large customers who oblige their suppliers, often SMEs, to disclose their sustainability performance. Otherwise there is a risk of exclusion from the supplier list.

‘Swiss companies have been investing in their sustainability initiatives for years. However, in many cases this has not yet led to sustainability really becoming part of their DNA,’ says Prof Dr Markus Arnold. This is confirmed above all by the survey results on remuneration, which are strongly driven by economic indicators. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) indicators only play a subordinate role.

High expenditure

According to the study, small companies have been reporting on their sustainability initiatives for more than five years on average and large companies for more than ten years. The standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are primarily applied. The new obligations under the Swiss Code of Obligations, which already had to be fulfilled for the 2023 financial year, have rapidly caught up. In addition to external costs, large companies in particular are also devoting considerable human resources to this – on average one full-time position over four months. This effort is mainly incurred in compiling the relevant key figures and ultimately in preparing the sustainability report.

We have noticed that many companies have professionalised the issue of sustainability. However, in order to keep up with international competition, many Swiss companies still need to step up their game and translate their in-depth understanding of sustainability into concrete transformation initiatives. This is particularly necessary against the backdrop of EU regulation. Many Swiss companies operate subsidiaries in EU countries and are obliged to apply EU directives or regulations such as the Corporate Social Responsibility Directive (CSRD) or the EU Climate Taxonomy for the 2025 financial year. In order to do this effectively, more detailed information and data must be prepared.