Overview
With the Corporate Sustainablity Reporting Directive (CSRD), the European Union has created extensive reporting obligations for companies in the areas of E(nvironment), S(ocial) and G(overnance). In the EU, an estimated 50,000 companies are affected by the reporting obligation. Many Swiss companies are indirectly affected by this through their subsidiaries in the EU or as suppliers to EU companies. In Switzerland itself, the consultation process to align the obligations in sustainability reporting with the CSRD is currently taking place. As a result, it is expected that the previous direct obligations of Swiss companies under Art. 964b OR will be significantly expanded in order to bring them closer to the obligations in the EU.
The project will attempt to develop assistance for the difficulties that companies are currently facing in a very practical way. Specifically, key figures are to be developed that meet the regulatory requirements and these key figures are to be defined in such a way that their measurement methods are clear and thus comparability between companies is achieved. The technical implementation should be considered from the outset and a platform should be developed that offers SMEs in particular an efficient and digital method of meeting their reporting obligations in a reliable, comparable and affordable way.
This objective cannot be achieved within the project applied for here. Therefore, a larger and more specific project proposal should be developed as part of this application, which should be submitted to Innosuisse. As part of this preliminary project, the objective should be sharpened so that a promising application can be submitted. On the one hand, this includes putting together a team of practical partners. On the other hand, academic partnerships can be established nationally and internationally.
Discussions on this have already taken place with the University of St. Gallen (Prof. Dr. Thomas Berndt) and with the company greenbase (Declan Falvey).
The applicants are aware that the heterogeneity of the key figures relevant in the area of ESG may mean that in the further project phase it may prove useful to concentrate on individual sectors or that the solution is constructed using a generally valid part plus sector-specific supplementary data.
