Procurement

Swiss Life requires its external service providers and suppliers to comply with high sustainability standards and accept their responsibility towards their employees, society and the environment.

Group-wide principles for sustainable procurement

Swiss Life mainly accesses products and services from the following categories for its insurance business:

• Professional services (such as advisory services)
• Marketing and public relations
• Human resources
• IT services and telecoms
• IT software and IT hardware
• Facility management services (e.g. security personnel, building maintenance, cleaning) and general services (refreshments, electricity, gas, etc.)
• Travel and events

When selecting suppliers, Swiss Life is also guided by ethical, ecological and economic principles and works with local suppliers or suppliers in OECD countries where this makes sense and is possible.

Most of the suppliers and service providers in Switzerland are domestically based. About 20% are from the EU.

Swiss Life works mainly with national suppliers also in its other core markets of France and Germany. Foreign suppliers account for under 5% in both countries.

When working with major international companies in the IT area, Swiss Life works wherever possible with their national companies at all locations so that emissions from travel are kept as low as possible.

Moreover, Swiss Life is one of Europe’s leading real estate investors and has the biggest private real estate portfolio in Switzerland. In this context, Swiss Life mainly uses external services for architecture and expert planning services plus general construction services.