With eBill, SIX Significantly Reduces CO₂ Emissions in Swiss Payments

With more than 50 million transactions in 2021, eBill is now established as the digital invoicing standard in Switzerland. This also has an impact for our climate: A study on behalf of SIX reveals emissions savings of at least 80% of digital bills compared to paper invoices.

In Swiss payments, the majority of the more than 1 bil­lion invoices per year are still sent by mail. This has corresponding negative effects on the Swiss carbon footprint. With the continuous establishment of digital billing and invoicing via eBill, SIX is contributing to significantly reducing CO₂ emissions related to Swiss payment transactions. A study conducted on behalf of SIX in 2021 compared the three main types of billing in Switzerland – paper bills via postal mailing, electronic bills via e-mail, and digital bills via eBill – with regard to their respective CO₂ foot­print. Results show that with emissions of 9.8g CO₂-equivalent, eBill reduces CO₂ emissions by around 40% compared to e-mail invoices and achieves savings of at least 80% compared to paper invoices, which in the best case are paid via online banking (54.4g CO₂-eq).

SIX aims for 80% of all invoices in Switzerland to be paid via eBill by 2028. With the invoicing volume staying constant, this would result in an emission reduction of around 60% in Swiss payment traffic. Assuming an annual storage of about 6 t CO₂-eqivalent per hectare of forest, at least 5,700 hectares of forest could thus be preserved in 2028.