Neuchâtel, 11.05.2012 (FSO) – The Federal Council has commissioned the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) to develop indicators to complement the gross domestic product (GDP). This is because a comprehensive picture of developments in society, the economy and the environment cannot be provided by GDP alone. The FSO is carrying out the mandate in two phases. In the first phase, the results of which are being presented today by the FSO, existing statistical information is placed in the context of the economy or of society as a whole. This initial, rough compilation clearly shows that overall, Switzerland comes out quite well in terms of social, economic and ecological performance. Subsequently, the FSO will further develop and consolidate the indicator set and the results.
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Neuchâtel, 17.01.2012 (FSO) - 95% of Switzerland's residential population ranks the environmental quality in their place of residence as very good or quite good. 74% of the population consider the quality of the environment to have a very big or quite big influence on their personal quality of life. 17% of the population feel very bothered or quite bothered by air pollution at their place of residence. These are initial findings from a survey on the environment conducted for the first time by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) in spring 2011 as part of the new population census.
Neuchâtel, 29.08.2011 (FSO) - In 2009, the economy's expenditure on environmental protection amounted to CHF 2.75 billion, i.e. almost 0.5% of GDP. In industry, this expenditure represented 1.1% of gross value added, a burden corresponding to less than half that borne by European industry. Industry spending on environmental protection fell by 10% in real terms compared with 2003. These are the first results of a survey conducted by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).
Bern/Neuchâtel, 13.07.2011 (FOEN/FSO) - Much progress was made in the environmental field prior to 2000. Since then there have been some improvements, but the targets have not been reached in core areas such as climate change and biodiversity conservation. Within Switzerland, the pressure on the environment continues to grow, albeit at a somewhat slower pace in some areas in recent years. The effects abroad are becoming increasingly significant as a result of growing material imports. These are the findings of the "Environment Switzerland 2011" report, which was compiled jointly by the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).
Neuchâtel, 09.09.2010 (FSO) - The growth of settlement areas in the West and in Northwest Switzerland declined from 12% during the 1982-1994 observation period to 9% in the 1994-2006 observation period. Extrapolated to Switzerland, 264 km2 of new settlement areas were built over a 12-year period. This corresponds to almost the same area as the canton of Nidwalden or to just over 0.6% of the national territory. The increase occurred mainly at the expense of farmland. These are current partial results of the third Swiss Land Use Statistics conducted by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), which for the first time also include the cantons of Zurich, Zug and Schaffhausen.
The Swiss Confederation is launching a publicly accessible Internet platform for geographical information. This “geoportal” is there for everybody to use, not just professionals and specialists. Are the glaciers really retreating? How big was my home village 100 years ago? Where does the water for power generation come from? These and many other questions can be answered with modern geographical information, which describes the state of a country in the form of coordinates, place names, postal addresses and many other criteria. This information has recently been made available at www.geo.admin.ch, the Federal geoportal.
Neuchâtel, 22.09.2009 (FSO) - Between 1990 and 2005, greenhouse gas emissions in Switzerland increased by 3.6%, rising from 61 to 63.2 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. More than 80% of this growth was caused by households, whose transport emissions increased by more than 1.8 million tonnes (+20%) in fifteen years. The approximately 0.4 million tonnes remaining can be accounted for by the economy, whose emissions rose by 1% during this period. These results come from the Federal Statistical Office's (FSO) accounting of greenhouse gas emissions by economic player, based on national accounting principles. Due to the consistency with the National Accounts, these results differ from those of the Swiss greenhouse gas inventory according to the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, all emissions generated by economic activities are accounted for, including CO2 emissions from biomass used as fuel and from air traffic. In 2005, households and the economy generated 39% and 61%, respectively, of greenhouse gas emissions in Switzerland. Heating accounted for 56% of household emissions, transport for 44%. As far as the economy is concerned, emissions were generated mainly by the manufacturing industry (29%), transport (15%), agriculture (15%) and waste management (15%).
Although progress has been made in many sectors, the environment is still subject to significant pressures. As shown by the “Environment Switzerland 2009” report published by the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), the impacts of urbanisation, traffic and the large-scale consumption of resources are lessening the effectiveness of the measures taken.
Neuchâtel, 25.11.2008 (FSO) - The activities of the Swiss economy and households generated the use of nearly 360 million tonnes of materials in 2006. The transformation, consumption and combustion of materials in Switzerland discharged nearly 60 million tonnes of waste to the environment, mainly in the form of air emissions. At the same time, 64 million tonnes of materials were stored, e.g. in buildings or infrastructure. This is the first time that a balance sheet of material flows is published by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).
The Swiss policy on environment and resources has produced positive results in several areas such as water quality, waste treatment and certain atmospheric pollutants. These are the findings of the report entitled «Environment Switzerland 2007» published by the federal government on 1 June 2007. However, the general state of the environment in Switzerland has not improved significantly. Our style of life and patterns of consumption have cancelled out the progress made in environmental protection. The main challenges for the future remain the use of resources and climate change.
