Sustainability strategy

Our five key topics and goals

Sustainability is firmly embedded in PostFinance’s strategy. Our focus is on five key topics and other sustainability issues cutting across these topics that will impact our company’s business activities. For each of these topics, we have defined ambitious goals.

Sustainability embedded in the strategy

  • Climate, with a view to reducing emissions
  • Environment, with a view to protecting the basis of our existence
  • Diversity, equity and inclusion, with a view to treating our employees equally and ensuring a diverse talent base that reflects the diversity of our customers
  • Knowledge development and education, with a view to training our employees and strengthening financial literacy in society
  • Transparency and digital ethics, with a view to communicating transparently and protecting customer data

We are also pursuing other sustainability issues cutting across these topics, with a view to embedding sustainability throughout our company as a whole – including our market service, our participations and our procurement.

Materiality analysis

Using a double materiality analysis, we have identified 11 ESG topics and linked them to the strategic goals.

Our ambition

In line with Swiss Post’s climate targets, we want to achieve net zero in our own operations from 2040. By 2050 at the latest, our goal is also to reduce emissions along our value chain by at least 90 percent compared to 2021.

In doing so, we place particular emphasis on the financed emissions that arise as a result of our activities on the global capital market. At the same time, we use renewable energy sources and we continuously work to improve energy efficiency in our own operations.

Our climate targets for 2030

  • By 2028: 94.2 percent of PostFinance’s total energy consumption from renewable sources
  • By 2030: –42 percent greenhouse gas emissions from our own operations compared to 2021
  • By 2030: –63.6 percent greenhouse gas emissions from our owned properties compared to 2021
  • By 2030: –25 percent greenhouse gas emissions in our value chain compared with 2021 (particularly emissions financed by our own investments).

Our climate targets for 2050

  • By 2040: –90 percent greenhouse gas emissions compared to 2021 in our own operations (e.g. through e-mobility, energy-efficient buildings)
  • From 2040: we will remove and store (neutralize) the remaining emissions from our own operations.
  • By 2050: –90 percent greenhouse gas emissions compared to 2021 in the value chain (emissions from our suppliers and proprietary investments)

Our ambition

We want to promote biodiversity  and species diversity, and initiate measures to preserve the ecosystem because we must protect the basis of our existence.

Our goals

In 2025, we will build up knowledge and resources, before going on develop an approach to defining concrete measures.

Our ambition

We believe that employees can only realize their full potential if they are valued and accepted, and everyone can be who they are. To create this kind of working environment, we are establishing a diverse, fair and inclusive work culture, a culture that also gives us a diverse talent base that allows us to respond to the various needs of our diverse customers.

Our goals

  • By 2028, we will increase the proportion of women in middle and senior management to 30 percent
  • We are ensuring equal opportunities and reducing the difference in the promotion rate by gender, age and language to 0 percentage points
  • By 2028, we will increase the proportion of employees with physical or mental disabilities or with a refugee background to 0.2 percent of the total workforce

Our ambition

Because they are a decisive factor in achieving our sustainability goals, we are investing in awareness-raising and knowledge development among our employees with regard to the issue of sustainability. We also want to support society by encouraging the growth of general financial knowledge, but also knowledge concerning sustainability in the financial system.

Our goals

  • We want to achieve a high quality of awareness-raising measures for employees
  • We want to strengthen the financial knowledge and financial literacy of the general public, and we are investing more in projects to support these goals

Our ambition

We work to ensure transparency in our products and services with a view to strengthening the trust of customers, employees and other stakeholders, and to safeguarding our reputation.

In digital ethics , we think about the values we want to live by in a digital world in order to shape society for the better through technical innovations. Our ambition is to take advantage of the opportunities offered by digitization while ensuring that our values (such as privacy, non-discrimination and solidarity) are upheld.

Our goals

We provide training to employees that allows them to develop a basis for and an understanding of ethical digital conduct.

Our ambition

Market service

To develop and expand products with a sustainability focus (along the ESG dimensions) in PostFinance’s range of services on the market. We want to launch new products and services with a sustainability focus, but also expand our existing products and services.

Supply chain

We want to gradually expand the number of suppliers who also have a high level of awareness of sustainability management. With EcoVadis , we use a platform that rates the performance of suppliers in terms of the environment, labour and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement.

Society

We want to be actively committed to society. Our focus is on creating positive impacts. These positive impacts can be in the areas of the environment, social issues and corporate governance, and should contribute to strengthening the Swiss financial center.

Our goals

Expansion of our range of services on the market with a focus on sustainability:

  • we are increasing the share of customer investments positioned as ESG or sustainable and we are continuing to expand our range of investment products in line with requirements.
  • We are also expanding our products and services with a sustainability focus outside the investment business and specifically promoting innovation projects for this purpose. We are increasing the proportion of our suppliers with a sustainability rating from a recognized agency.
  • We are investing a higher proportion of our operating income in partnerships and projects with a focus on sustainability.
  • We want our commitment to sustainability to be seen positively by people in Switzerland. One of the ways we measure our progress is by how society judges us.

Materiality matrix

We use the materiality analysis to determine the ESG (environmental, social, governance) issues relevant to PostFinance and our stakeholders. In 2024, we conducted a double materiality analysis and identified eleven material topics.

These are our key sustainability topics

The 2024 materiality matrix presents the sustainability topics that are material for PostFinance according to their impacts on business performance (X axis) and their impacts on the environment and society (Y axis). The topics of employment, digitization and innovation, diversity and equity, protection of customer data, access, financial inclusion and education, climate, compliance, marketing and labelling, and responsible investing – own investments are in the area of high materiality for both dimensions. The topic of responsible procurement is in the area of high materiality for the dimension impacts on business performance. The topics of responsible investing – customer investments, energy, biodiversity, anti-corruption and brokerage for mortgages and personal loans have lower impacts in both dimensions.

The 2024 materiality matrix presents the sustainability topics that are material for PostFinance according to their impacts on business performance (X axis) and their impacts on the environment and society (Y axis).