In March 2026, the Swiss Federal Council published, in the form of a stand-alone draft bill on Sustainable Business Conduct (available in the country’s official national languages), an indirect counter-proposal to the popular initiative “For responsible businesses – protecting human rights and the environment” (which was submitted by a consortium of Civil Society Organisations in May 2025). It aims at aligning Switzerland’s obligations to those applicable within the European Union (EU), especially the EU omnibus Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CS3D) which has been adopted in February 2026 and will enter into force in 2029 (see ICI’s summary here).
It builds on the first popular initiative on Multinational Enterprises submitted in 2015 and which, after having been rejected in referendum in November 2020 (winning the majority of citizens votes but failing the cantonal majority requirement) lead to the enforcement of the Duty of Care and Transparency ordinance enshrined in the Swiss Code of Obligations (CO, Articles 964j – 964l) in January 2022.
ICI prepared a summary of the main elements of the draft bill, compared against the current Swiss legislation and the EU CS3D.
