SWISS is to join the swisscleantech Swiss business association. With more than 500 corporate members drawn from all business and industry segments, swisscleantech is dedicated to making the Swiss economy as climate-compatible as possible, with the specific goals of achieving net carbon neutrality by 2050 and positioning Switzerland as a climate protection pioneer. In joining the association, SWISS is further underlining its own commitment to seeking and adopting sustainable solutions and to helping drive the transformation to carbon-neutral mobility and a carbon-neutral economy.

Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) will become a member of swisscleantech, the Swiss business association for a climate-compatible economy, in the course of this month. Swisscleantech numbers over 500 members, including 40 associations from all business and industrial sectors, who are all dedicated to seeing Switzerland adopt and maintain a knowledge-based liberal energy and climate policy. The shared objectives of swisscleantech and its rapidly growing membership are to make Switzerland carbon-neutral by 2050 and to demonstrate how business success goes hand-in-hand with ambitious climate protection.

“At SWISS we have also set ourselves ambitious sustainability goals, including making ourselves carbon-neutral by 2050,” says SWISS CEO Dieter Vranckx. “And we will only achieve these objectives with the help of strong partnerships, strategic collaborations and broad-based alliances, and with scientific, economic, political and social support. Swisscleantech is the ideal partner for us to jointly promote core issues in Switzerland, in areas such as the broad political parameters or promoting sustainable fuels. We are convinced that this combined approach will help decisively boost our own sustainability endeavours, and we are looking forward to the collaboration.”

As Switzerland’s umbrella business association for a climate-compatible economy, swisscleantech advocates an ambitious Swiss energy and climate policy, offers its members access to expertise, best practices and key decision-makers and promotes and supports a dialogue and exchange between business, the science community and the political world.  

“Aviation has a responsibility to substantially accelerate its climate protection activities and help us all achieve our net-zero objective,” says swisscleantech’s co-president Fabian Etter. “SWISS is setting an international example here, pursuing a genuinely holistic approach and investing in promising new technologies. Our new collaboration will enable us to assist and advise SWISS on how best to achieve its objectives, and will ensure that we as an association make a tangible contribution to the decarbonization of the aviation sector.”

Sustainability anchored in SWISS corporate strategy

As part of the company’s broader recovery following the coronavirus crisis and the associated restructuring, the Management Board has firmly anchored sustainability in the corporate strategy and made it one of its five core action areas. “At SWISS we hold a holistic view of our corporate responsibility. But we put a particular emphasis on environmental care, and on reducing our carbon dioxide emissions”, SWISS CEO Vranckx continues.

At the heart of such actions are SWISS’s endeavours to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from its flight operations, not least by consistently modernizing its aircraft fleet and by promoting the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in alignment with the Lufthansa Group. In view of the limited scalability of biogenic fuels, SWISS is putting particular energies into the development of synthetic fuels, and is supporting Swiss-based pioneer Synhelion in its efforts to bring solar fuels to market.

SWISS is also steadily expanding the options available to its private and corporate customers to make their air travel activities carbon-neutral by purchasing SAF and further offsetting their travel’s carbon emissions during the flight booking process. This, too, is sending strong signals of demand for such fuels, which should further stimulate their development and production. SWISS additionally has dedicated teams working to continually further enhance its flight operations, and is involved in numerous projects at both the national and the international level to achieve similar climate ends.

In joining swisscleantech, SWISS is underlining its commitment to working with strong partners to seek, find and adopt effective climate solutions and help further drive the transformation to carbon-neutral mobility and economy.