Switzerland Proposes a New Sustainability Law

Switzerland has opened consultation on a draft law that would reorganise its approach to sustainability reporting and corporate due diligence. The proposal would place these rules in a single federal statute and align them more closely with current EU developments.

Switzerland has opened consultation on a draft Federal Act on Sustainable Corporate Governance (Bundesgesetz über die nachhaltige Unternehmensführung, NUFG), which would consolidate the country’s rules on sustainability reporting and due diligence. The draft would bring Swiss requirements closer to current EU developments, with direct coverage limited to the largest companies.

The shift is from separate Swiss provisions to a single statutory framework aligned with current international, and especially EU, developments.

A Single Statute for Reporting and Due Diligence

On 1 April 2026, the Federal Council opened consultation on the NUFG, with the process running until 9 July 2026. The draft would bring rules on human rights, environmental due diligence, sustainability reporting, supervision and liability into one statute. The stated aim is to strengthen transparency and legal certainty without going beyond the European regulatory level.

The proposal is presented as an indirect counterproposal to the 2025 popular initiative For Responsible Businesses – Protecting Human Rights and the Environment (Für verantwortungsvolle Grossunternehmen – zum Schutz von Mensch und Umwelt). It would also retain the existing Swiss regime for conflict minerals and child labour.

Where the Proposal Stands and Who it Would Cover

Current Swiss rules remain in force while the NUFG is still at consultation stage, including non-financial reporting, climate reporting, and specific due diligence and reporting obligations for conflict minerals and child labour.

The draft separates due diligence from sustainability reporting. Human rights and environmental due diligence would apply to Swiss companies with more than 5,000 full-time employees and more than CHF 1.5 billion in worldwide revenue in each of two consecutive financial years. Sustainability reporting would apply at more than 1,000 full-time employees and more than CHF 450 million in worldwide revenue.

The reporting side also includes exemptions. Companies may be exempt where they publish an equivalent report under foreign law, are covered by another company’s report, or are non-operating holding structures. On liability, the draft sets out two variants. One would introduce a specific liability provision in the NUFG, while the other would rely on the general liability rules in the Swiss Code of Obligations (Obligationenrecht, OR). Both options require a special conciliation procedure in Switzerland before court action.

How the Draft Affects Reporting Obligations

According to the explanatory report, the proposal responds to a market reality already shaped by EU rules. Many Swiss companies are already directly affected by EU third-country reporting and due diligence requirements. In that context, the draft is less about creating a new compliance logic than about determining how Swiss law defines scope, accepted standards, supervision and liability for large companies.

Governance, Data and Assurance

The main operational issues are ownership, evidence and assurance. The top management or administrative body would choose the reporting standard, and the sustainability report would need formal approval. The draft also links reporting to the business model and strategy, sustainability targets, governance and policies, incentives and due diligence, and the resulting impacts, responses, risks and metrics.

For due diligence, the proposal sets out expectations around strategy, risk management, impact identification, action plans, stakeholder engagement, complaints procedures and monitoring. Sustainability reporting would be subject to limited assurance, and due diligence reporting would be reviewed under the same audit framework. Reports would need to be electronic and remain publicly available for ten years. They may be prepared in one of the national languages or in English.

The draft also establishes a more formal supervisory architecture. It would assign oversight to the existing federal audit supervisory authority, the Eidgenössische Revisionsaufsichtsbehörde (RAB), which the explanatory report says would take on sustainability oversight functions. This would link reporting and due diligence more directly to audit and review structures.

EU alignment and what to watch

The proposal is explicitly linked to EU developments, including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the European Union’s Omnibus directive. The draft also says the sustainability report must follow a standard used in the European Union or another equivalent standard recognised by the Federal Council.

For large preparers, that linkage matters because it points to possible reuse of EU-aligned reporting architectures rather than a separate Swiss-only system. The consultation runs until 9 July 2026. The main issues to watch are whether the final text keeps the proposed thresholds, the liability design and the supervisory model.