"New Responsible Business Initiative submitted", 27 May 2025

Within just two weeks, more than 10,000 volunteers collected the necessary signatures for the new Responsible Business Initiative in January. Today, 287,164 signatures were submitted to the Federal Chancellery.

On January 7, 2025, a committee of politicians from all political camps, entrepreneurs and civil society representatives launched the new Responsible Business Initiative. It would oblige corporations such as Glencore to comply with human rights and environmental regulations in their business activities.

After just 14 days, 183,661 people had already signed the initiative, thanks to over 1,000 signature collection events that thousands of volunteers had organized in public places all over Switzerland in mid-January. Now that enough signatures have been certified by the municipalities, the Responsible Business Initiative was submitted to the Federal Chancellery today...

The Federal Council promised to take an „internationally coordinated“ approach and to strive for a „level playing field“ for companies in Switzerland and the EU... However, although various European countries such as Germany and Norway have since introduced corporate accountability laws and the European Union adopted a due diligence directive in spring 2024, the discussion in Switzerland has not progressed...

To this day, companies based in Switzerland continue to violate human rights and basic environmental regulations: A Glencore mine in Peru contaminates an entire region, the Geneva-based metal trading group IXM leaves behind around 300,000 tons of highly toxic waste in Namibia, and the Geneva-based Louis Dreyfus Company traded sugar from plantations in India where women are pushed to remove their wombs to avoid missing work.
The new Responsible Business Initiative will put an end to such business practices.