12 April, 2022, Zurich, Switzerland – Two leaders in their respective fields – South Pole and Swisscom – have partnered to catalyse transformational climate protection in Switzerland and beyond, drawing on their complementary expertise in digitisation and sustainability. As part of this endeavour, Swisscom will take a minority investment position in South Pole.
“Digital solutions for climate change is perhaps the world's most disruptive trend that will shape societies and economies in the decade ahead. Together with Swisscom, we aim to ensure that organisations and individuals can find the best possible opportunities for climate action," says Renat Heuberger, CEO and co-founder of South Pole.
“We believe that the momentum of digitisation can provide new ways to accelerate climate protection. We aim to contribute to climate protection by reducing carbon emissions by one million tons per year by 2025 by deploying innovative solutions to our customers together with strong partners such as South Pole, that will move us towards a low-carbon future faster," says Urs Schaeppi, CEO of Swisscom.
This investment underscores Swisscom's long-term commitment to harness the power of digitisation for more sustainable societies and goes hand-in-hand with South Pole's ambition to dramatically scale up climate action using digital technology. Together the two companies will offer new clients a range of services, including measuring climate impact, setting science-based emissions targets, creating emission reduction strategies, compensating for unavoidable carbon emissions, and investing in climate finance.
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Isabel Hagbrink, Director of Global Communications
South Pole, a social enterprise recognised by the World Economic Forum's Schwab Foundation, is today the world's leading climate solutions provider and carbon project developer. Since its creation in 2006, it has developed nearly 1,000 projects in over 50 countries to reduce over one gigaton of CO2 emissions, and to provide social benefits to less privileged communities who are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Projects range from sustainable agriculture, forest conservation, waste management, to energy efficiency and decentralised renewable energy. South Pole also advises thousands of leading companies on their sustainability journeys, including Nestlé, Digitec, and L'Oreal, to achieve net-zero emissions. With its global Climate Solutions platform, South Pole develops and implements comprehensive strategies that turn climate action into long-term business opportunities for companies, governments and organisations around the world.
South Pole is committed to becoming a B Corp globally across all of its local entities, building on its existing B Corp certification in Australia and the U.S.
Swisscom, Switzerland's leading telecommunications company and one of its leading IT companies, is headquartered in Ittigen, close to the capital city Berne. Outside Switzerland, Swisscom has a presence on the Italian market through Fastweb. Through Q3 in 2021, over 19,100 employees generated sales of CHF 8,343 million. It is 51% Confederation-owned and is one of Switzerland's most sustainable and innovative companies, for example by the use of electricity from 100% renewable energy since 2010, following a SBTi-reduction path for 1.5 ºC since 2016 and offering carbon neutral telecom products since 2022.
