National level:

To monitor progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the national level requires an appropriate set of metrics. The MONET 2030 indicator system gives an overview of sustainable development in Switzerland, providing a picture of the progress made towards the 17 SDGs of the United Nations 2030 Agenda as well in relation to certain topics specific to Switzerland. Comprising over 100 indicators relating to the three environmental, social and economic dimensions, the system is structured around the 17 SDGs.

The indicator systems are designed to:

• initiate debate between stakeholders in society about the goals of sustainable development;
• measure the current level of sustainability, indicate trends over time and identify areas for action;
• inform  the public and political decision-makers about the current state of sustainable development and thus enable potential problem areas to be identified at an early stage; and
• enable comparisons (benchmarking) to motivate all actors to emulate good practice and step up their efforts to achieve the goals.

The list of updated MONET 2030 indicator set. 

50 of the 104 indicators of the MONET 2030 indicator system on sustainable development have been updated to the latest data status.

Two new indicators complement the MONET 2030 indicator system:

• Hazardous chemicals (Target 12.4)
• Greenhouse gas footprint of food (target 12.2b)

Several indicators updated with 2020 data document the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. These include, for example, years of potential life lost (SDG 3), modal split of passenger transport (SDG 11) and greenhouse gas emissions (SDG 13). Other indicators for which more recent data are available returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2021. This applies in particular to road traffic accidents (SDG 3), final energy consumption per capita (SDG 7) and congestion on Swiss motorway network (SDG 9).

Global dimension of Sustainable Development

In Switzerland, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) coordinates the exchange of data with the UN. The stats_agenda2030 network was set up to ensure an efficient flow of data between the federal government and the UN agencies, coordinate responsibilities in order to keep administrative burden to a minimum and encourage transparency. The network, which is attached to the Swiss organization of statistics providers, Fedestat, will remain active until at least 2030.

Switzerland has opted for a decentralized model, as many units of the federal government have maintained direct contacts with UN agencies for many years. Some 30 federal government units are involved in the production, delivery or validation of data for the IAEG-SDGs indicators alongside other Swiss actors.

The data is delivered to the UN custodian agency responsible for indicators in a particular sector. Each year, about 50 agencies participate in the collection and harmonization of the required national data, which are then transmitted to the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) for publication.

Local level:

Cantons and municipalities, with the support of the Federal Office for Spatial Development (ARE), have created, since 2003, ‘cercle indicateurs’ as a common platform for indicators and monitoring on the local level. German | French | Italian

The indicator system “Cercle Indicateurs” has a new structure:

Ten topics allow easy access to the indicators. The topics reflect the interpretation of sustainable development at the level of cities and cantons. In addition, it is possible to filter by the three dimensions of sustainable development and the 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda.

Each indicator includes two graphs on development over time and comparison with other cities or cantons, and presents the most important information for understanding and interpreting the indicator.

This new presentation is the result of a revision of the Cercle Indicateurs indicator system carried out by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO), the Federal Office for Spatial Development (ARE) and the 29 partner cities and 19 partner cantons.