Switzerland's economic fabric is largely made of small and medium-sized enterprises. The cleantech sector is no exception, although it is supported by a handful of major industrial groups such as ABB, Burckhardt Compression, Georg Fischer, Gurit, Huber+Suhner, or Sulzer. Promising start-ups including Climeworks, South Pole, eSMART, Battrion, Urbio, Hades, Flisom, Solaxess, DePoly, Energy Vault, Insolight and many others are emerging from the leading universities ETH Zurich, EPFL in Lausanne and other research institutes.
The transition to a greener economy and commitment to Net Zero creates important opportunities beyond the Cleantech sector: major Swiss industrial companies are either looking for solutions to become greener or are positioning themselves as solution providers for greening their respective industries.
Swiss MNEs aim to globally seize opportunities, such as created by the IRA or the EU Green Deal implementation. While the Swiss government is committed to the Paris Agreement, has a carbon tax, and supports Cleantech start-ups, much of the action is driven by industry.
This is supported by the banking and insurance center, with continued investments worldwide in line with ESG commitments. The major commodity traders based in Switzerland, such as Glencore, Vitol, Trafigura and others, seize commercially viable opportunities in emission trading, and they make strategic investments along the lines of critical minerals and hydrogen derivatives, following closely the actual market demand.
