S E P I

Strategic Environmental Performance Index

Decision-grade environmental performance benchmarking — comparability-first, audit-ready, and transparent by design.

  • Standardised environmental pressure signals derived from publicly available corporate information

  • Distance-to-reference benchmarking (best practices without “blame & shame”)

  • Built for boards, investors and public institutions

Built for decision-making

Boards & Management

Benchmark peers, identify hotspots, and prioritise levers and capital allocation.

Investors

Comparable signals across companies and sectors, with transparent assumptions and explicit limitations.

Public institutions

Sector baselines and reference distances to support policy dialogue, monitoring, and prioritisation.

SEPI is designed as a public-interest benchmarking initiative developed under the Eric Zangger Stiftung (CH).

Benchmarking without “blame & shame”

SEPI communicates results primarily as distance-to-reference (Swiss benchmark and sector reference), highlighting best practices and improvement potential. Internal ranking logic may exist for validation, while public communication prioritises learning and comparability.

  • Reference points: Swiss baseline and sector reference

  • Focus: distance-to-reference and peer comparability

  • Governance: documented assumptions and explicit limitations

What SEPI is

SEPI translates public corporate disclosures into standardised environmental performance signals and distance-to-reference benchmarks.

  • Comparable across companies and sectors

  • Documented assumptions and explicit limitations

  • Designed for boards, investors and public institutions

What SEPI is not

  • Not an ESG questionnaire score

  • Not a black-box rating

  • Not a certification or label

  • Not a replacement for issuer-level due diligence

Method in four steps

Data intake

Publicly available corporate disclosures and structured sources.

KPI mapping & normalisation

Standardised KPI definitions and comparability-first normalisation.

Scenario weighting & robustness

Scenario-based weighting with high-level robustness checks.

Benchmark outputs

Public outputs released only under the validated publication roadmap.


Transparency commitment

Key assumptions, limitations, and versioning principles are documented and maintained.

Governance and assurance-readiness

  • Consistent definitions and documented assumptions

  • Versioning, change logs and reproducibility discipline

  • Explicit treatment of missing data and coverage

  • Separation of measured pressures vs narrative “levers”

  • Correction mechanism for data issues

Publication roadmap

  • Now: trust-layer website and stakeholder alignment

  • 2026: expert review and deliverable refinement

  • December 2026: first public digital release (publication pack)

Scope: Switzerland (Phase 1) — Planned European expansion (Phase 2).

For the high-level approach, see Methodology. For governance and release gating, see Governance. For timing, see Roadmap.