Who counts as a large importer?
A large importer is anyone who imports into Switzerland and puts into circulation at least 50 passenger cars, at least 6 light commercial vehicles or at least 2 heavy vehicles within a calendar year (Art. 18 CO₂ Ordinance). Large importers do not settle the CO₂ levy per individual vehicle but through the Swiss Federal Office of Energy for the entire fleet – based on the average CO₂ value (arithmetic mean) of all new vehicles imported in the calendar year.
Solution 1: volume settlement
The CO₂ Ordinance allows the CO₂ burden of a vehicle to be assigned to another company after import. Our concept for general and parallel importers: you book a fixed CO₂ gram quota for the calendar year with CO2 Börse AG and assign vehicles at an attractive price per gram of CO₂. This lets you carve very high-consumption vehicles out of your own CO₂ pool and reduce your CO₂ burden at scale.
Solution 2: handling and monitoring
You get access to our online CO₂ platform with your own calculation and monitoring tool and can query your current remaining CO₂ quota in real time – for maximum security, transparency and discretion. For full outsourcing, we recommend our CO₂ pool management as a service.
Forming emission pools
Importers and manufacturers can join together for one to five years in a passenger-car or LCV emission pool (Emissionsgemeinschaft) to jointly reach the minimum volumes for large importers and settle as one fleet. Important: the application must be submitted to the Swiss Federal Office of Energy by 31 December of the year preceding the reference year at the latest (Art. 22 CO₂ Ordinance).