About this Report

Scope of the Report

Swisscom’s Group structure is described in the “Group structure and organisation” section of this year’s Annual Report. A list of Group companies, comprising subsidiaries, associates and joint ventures, is provided in the Notes to the 2014 Consolidated Financial Statements (Note 41).

The scope of the Sustainability Report according to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is generally defined as follows: Swisscom Ltd and all Group companies domiciled in Switzerland which are fully consolidated in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are included in the Sustainability Report, except for subsidiaries Axept Ltd, CT Cinetrade Ltd and LTV Ltd. In line with GRI reporting requirements, acquisitions (e.g. Swisscom Banking Provider Ltd) are included from 1 January of the following year after the date of acquisition and disposals up to the date of disposal. Group companies domiciled abroad and investments in associates and joint ventures are not included in the scope. The Group’s main foreign shareholding is Fastweb in Italy. Fastweb publishes its own sustainability report in line with GRI4, which is reviewed by Bureau Veritas, an external, independent auditor. The closely related foundations comPlan (pension fund) and sovis are also not included in the scope.

In the year under review, the Swiss subsidiaries Axept Webcall Ltd, CT Cinetrade Ltd and LTV Yellow Pages Ltd are not included in the personnel information system, affecting 912 FTEs of a total 18,172 FTEs in Switzerland. The personnel information system thus has a coverage ratio of 95%.

The environmental performance indicators (especially regarding energy, water and waste water, emissions, and waste) cover nearly all of Swisscom’s FTEs in Switzerland. The report therefore includes all buildings managed by Swisscom Real Estate in Switzerland as well as the vehicle fleet managed by Swisscom’s Managed Mobility in Switzerland. As regards energy consumption, the data acquisition system also encompasses Swisscom (Switzerland) Ltd’s mobile base stations, proprietary production of solar energy, external server hosting of Swisscom Hospitality Services and the few transmitter stations Swisscom Broadcast Ltd operates just across the Swiss borders. The consumption of third-party tenants is deducted from total energy consumption. The information on supply chains covers nearly all of the suppliers. Particular attention is paid to the situation in countries that are not in the OECD.

Reporting: procedure and organisation

This Sustainability Report complies with the GRI principles on reporting. It is structured in line with the “comprehensive” option under GRI, meaning that it also contains specific standard disclosures in addition to general standard disclosures.

  • Swisscom has in the past few years developed a clear understanding of the issues pertaining to its immediate environment. In addition, issues are reported to Swisscom directly by stakeholder groups or identified through recent studies, market research, trend analyses and benchmarking reports. All of these issues are included in the materiality matrix.
  • Over the past few years, Swisscom has increasingly involved its stakeholder groups in the evaluation and assessment of the materiality of issues as well as in the setting of strategic priorities.
  • The results of materiality analyses form the basis of the formulation of the CR strategy and the setting of strategic priorities. They lay the foundation for reporting.
  • Swisscom often involves stakeholder groups in the validation of issues and corresponding reporting; the processes and procedures to be used for these can then be defined directly wherever necessary. Swisscom collaborates with the Federal Office for Energy (FOE), for instance, to provide information on Swisscom’s contribution to the “Role Model in the Area of Energy” (“Vorbildfunktion des Bundes im Energiebereich” – VBE) working group. Swisscom also works with the Energy Agency for Industry (EnAW) and WWF as part of the Climate Savers Group while also collaborating with other businesses in the ICT sector to contribute to the report on media skills in Switzerland. During the year under review, Swisscom had its Sustainability Report assessed by internal stakeholders. It also plans to involve additional stakeholders in the validation of the Sustainability Report over the course of the next few years.

Reference to the Swisscom 2014 Annual Report

The topics addressed in this Sustainability Report refer to the following sections in the Swisscom 2014 Annual Report:

  • Strategy: Swisscom’s corporate strategy is laid out in the section “Strategy, organisation and environment”, pages 28–29, of the Management Commentary of the Annual Report. The CR strategy is described in detail in this Sustainability Report.
  • Infrastructure: the “Networked Switzerland” section in this Sustainability Report refers to the section “Business model and customer relations”, pages 45–46, of the Annual Report, which describes the network infrastructure.
  • Added value: the added value statement and the distribution of added value are addressed in the Management Commentary of the Annual Report, in the section “Financial review”, page 78.
  • Attractive employer: the “Employees” section can be found in the 2014 Annual Report on pages 50–55.
  • Governance: the “Corporate Governance and Remuneration Reports” are explained in much further detail on pages 92–127 of the 2014 Annual Report.