Sustainability strategy

At HUBER+SUHNER, our proactive approach to sustainability allows us to detect risks and opportunities early and helps improve the company’s resilience in a changing world. Sustainability is an integral part of our business; it supports financial performance, especially in the medium and long term. We want to be a company that positively contributes to global issues – including with our solutions and products.

Our value chain: How we create and distribute value

HUBER+SUHNER creates value in multiple dimensions. Our value chain model below shows how we transform economic as well as environmental, social and governance inputs into valuable outputs and outcomes for our five key stakeholder groups – customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, and communities – over time, concretely over the twelve months of the reporting period.

HUBER+SUHNER aims to strengthen its leadership in technology and innovation while securing strong positions in target markets. This is achieved through ongoing collaboration between external markets, internal resources and society. The Group focuses on creating and sustaining value in the short, medium, and long term across all its business activities.

In 2024, 23 % of the direct economic value distributed and retained directly or indirectly benefited employees, and 1 % the public sector in the form of income taxes. Additionally, a proportion of dividends and management salaries flows back to the public through income taxes. Shareholders received 3 % of the direct economic value, while 70 % were operating costs. The economic value retained (3 %) remained in the company in the form of amortisation, depreciation, and retained earnings. A portion of the retained earnings is reinvested in innovation to better serve our customers.

Figure 1: How we create and distribute value

Material issues

In 2024, we collaborated with internal and external stakeholders to conduct a double materiality assessment (DMA). The DMA assesses both financial impact (single materiality) and how a company’s actions affect society and the environment. This assessment identified seven key sustainability topics for our company. The DMA was approved by the Executive Group Management in the fourth quarter of 2024. We will align our sustainability strategy in 2025 in accordance with the outcome of the DMA assessment. For the current reporting period, we remain aligned with our sustainability strategy, which is based on the 2022 DMA. The materiality matrix below illustrates the 13 sustainability topics we have been actively managing as part of our sustainability strategy.

Figure 2: Material issues assessed for their business and impact relevance

Within these 13 topics, we selected three focus topics:

Sustainable growth is essential for investments that benefit the environment and society, both of which are crucial for overall sustainability. In 2024, 31 % of our net sales came from growth initiatives.

Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions is a top priority within our environmental efforts, as climate change poses significant risks to both the economy and society at large. In 2024, we reduced our Scope 1+2 emissions by 21 %.

Community involvement and development is important to all Group sites. The company is allocating funds to support and initiate 222 projects, with CHF 489,000 provided by both the operating business and the HUBER+SUHNER Foundation.

Integration of sustainability issues into our strategy

In 2024, we conducted our inaugural climate scenario analysis to gain a deeper understanding of medium- to long-term risks and opportunities. Our business strategy has proven largely resilient to climate-related risks. For more details, please refer to the environment and risk management chapters. We will continue to actively monitor both physical and transition risks related to climate change.

Within our business strategy, we continuously strive to seize opportunities and mitigate transition-related risks, as well as negative sustainability impacts. Promoting sustainability at both corporate and product levels was one of our top five initiatives in 2024. This commitment is reflected in our business plan and financial planning, where sustainability is a strategic focus.