Despite time of crisis: sustainability gains importance among SMEs

The current crisis period does not seem to be slowing down trends that have already begun: according to a recent survey commissioned by B2B platform operator Visable, more than two-thirds of all companies (69 percent) have implemented environmental and climate initiatives in the last twelve months. Among the measures, the digital office in particular is becoming increasingly prevalent, certainly accelerated by the imperatives of the Corona pandemic. Nearly one-third (29%) of SMEs surveyed have increased their use of home offices over the past twelve months. Twenty-six percent of companies have moved to paperless processes. About a quarter of companies (23%) have preferred to conduct their meetings online, and a fifth have reduced their business travel.

Despite or because of the crisis period: More environmentally friendly mobility

There are also measures that have probably been implemented completely independently of the pandemic. For example, 16 percent of SMEs have promoted environmentally friendly employee mobility and 12 percent have newly deployed electric vehicles. As many as 11 percent have switched their energy supply to renewable sources.

The result of the survey is surprising. After all, Swiss SMEs have been struggling with many other challenges for some time. "The current crises are presenting companies with enormous problems in a wide variety of fields: Massively rising energy costs and interrupted supply chains are just two examples," says Visable CEO Peter F. Schmid. "Nevertheless, this does not make the topic of sustainability any less important - quite the opposite: a time of crisis in particular shows companies that only sustainable and forward-looking management in all areas makes their operations future-proof," explains Peter F. Schmid.

The survey was conducted by the market research institute YouGov between April 5 and 10, 2022 220 among decision-makers from small and medium-sized Swiss companies. The survey took place on the occasion of the "Leaders for Climate Action Week". Visable supports the organization "Leaders for Climate Action (LFCA)" in its goal of reaching a total of 100 million people with information on climate protection during the campaign week from April 18 to 24, 2022.

Remote work loses importance after pandemic

As the pandemic is expected to subside, the momentum for implementing measures in the area of remote work also appears to be waning: A significantly lower proportion of respondents have planned corresponding measures for the next twelve months. However, despite the radically changed work situation that has already resulted from two years of the pandemic, 14 percent still want to expand home office work even further. 13 percent want to switch even more to online meetings and 12 percent want to reduce business trips. Other measures such as promoting environmentally friendly mobility (14%), switching to electric vehicles (9%) and switching energy supplies to renewable sources (10%) remain more or less unchanged in importance over the next 12 months.

Similar trends in international comparison

In addition to Switzerland, the online survey was also conducted in Germany (508 participants), Austria (220 participants) and France (530 participants). The country comparison shows that the relevance of sustainable management is not only unbroken by the current crises, but is even increasing (significantly) in some areas: The importance of sustainability has increased significantly or somewhat for 41 percent of the German SMEs surveyed. In Austria, this is the case for 49 percent of SMEs. In France, the figure is 36 percent.

Peter F. Schmid comments: "I am pleased to see that the issue is gaining further importance in our core markets. To promote this development, it is important to me personally to raise awareness of more climate-friendly corporate action and, of course, to implement it in my own company. That's why I'm involved with Leaders for Climate Action and we support Leaders for Climate Week as a company."

Source: Visible

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