Big Swiss companies obliged to report on climate risks from 2024

Firms will have to report on how they impact the climate, and how the climate impacts their bottom line. Keystone / Yaron Kaminsky

From 2024, large Swiss firms will be legally bound to report on their climate-related risks. The government has now published guidelines on which companies and which risks will be involved.

The rules will apply to public and private companies with over 500 employees, over CHF20 million ($21.9 million) or CHF40 million in annual turnover, the government said on Wednesday.

Two main areas will have to be reported: first, a company’s financial or investment risks linked to climate change, and second, the impact that the firm’s commercial activity concretely has on the environment.

This “double materiality” corresponds to what the European Union (EU) is pushing for firms in the rest of Europe, the government said.

The decision also comes after G7 countries in June endorsed such mandatory disclosures for companies, following recommendations by the G20-mandated Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

The same month, France became the first major economy to make such rules binding when it set new targets that will require investors to declare how green their assets are and set greenhouse emissions goals every five years from 2021 onwards.

Britain has proposed UK companies should meet TCFD recommendations from next year.

The Swiss rules will come into force in 2024, with the Finance Ministry set to prepare a legal text on mandatory reporting by the end of summer 2022.