Direct Lobbying Transparency
| Overall Assessment | Comment | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Comprehensive | Swisscom AG provides highly detailed and wide-ranging disclosure of its climate-related lobbying. It identifies numerous specific pieces of legislation it has engaged on, including the Energy Strategy 2050 and its implementing ordinances, successive revisions of the Swiss CO2 Act (including the carbon tax provisions), the Revision of the Electricity Supply Act, the Ordinance on the Disposal of Electrical and Electronic Equipment, the VREG take-back ordinance, balance/control-energy market access rules and the Responsible Business Initiative, clearly naming the bills, the years of engagement and their national scope. The company also explains how it lobbied and who it targeted. It describes being “invited to join a consultation by the Federal Office of the Energy on the future law,” having “joined the consultations of the FOEn … on the reorganisation of the electricity market,” taking part in “lobbying in Swiss Parliament for market access to private players,” and working indirectly through umbrella associations such as Economiesuisse and swisscleantech as well as during public referendum campaigns, thereby giving concrete examples of direct consultations, parliamentary advocacy and association-based outreach and naming the Federal Office of Energy, the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication, the Swiss Parliament and the voting public as targets. Finally, Swisscom sets out the outcomes it sought in each case: it “support[ed] with no exceptions” the Energy Strategy 2050, pressed for “total market opening and not just partial market opening” of the electricity market, backed the federal goal of a 50 % emissions cut “with the greatest possible flexibility … and without increasing the CO2 tax,” campaigned for “an open market access to private players” in balance/control energy, opposed changes to the VREG that “brought no improvement for the environment and for the population,” and supported extension of the incentive tax on electricity and fossil fuels. By clearly linking its positions and rationales to each named policy, Swisscom demonstrates comprehensive transparency across policies lobbied, mechanisms used and outcomes sought. | 4 |