To meet the challenges of sustainability, STSA member companies mandated their association in 2021 to create a new training course for their employees to integrate environmental, social, and good governance (ESG) challenges into their daily work. This training had to be relevant to the commodity stream and had to reflect the contrasting realities of different types of commodities: agricultural, metals, minerals and energy. In addition, members wanted to be able to identify the opportunities that arise from better consideration of ESG impacts in their value chain, as well as by their suppliers.
In January 2023, STSA rolled out its new training for some twenty participants coming from numerous professions from within and outside its member companies. In the new ESG Sustainability Fundamentals training, managers from legal and compliance departments, risk managers and traders, auditors and lawyers, as well as a bank managing director, were able to discover the reality of sustainability, taught by three experts and five external speakers. Owing to previously applied technological efforts, the course was held in a hybrid format, allowing the audience to be extended to German-speaking Switzerland and abroad (Colombia, Romania).
Over the course of two days, the experts articulated their knowledge in four modules: legal and political framework for sustainability; origin of commodities and processing; distribution and use; governance and communication. The learning method mixed conveying knowledge with active participation through group work and in class presentations. For the first time, a two-day course brought together more than 8 speakers, thereby proving the importance of and the interest in this topic.
In addition to the presence of ESG managers, the innovation consisted of including different stakeholders in its training. The Swiss government was able to explain its expectations with a presentation from the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Likewise, the NGO Terre des Hommes (TdH) addressed the issue of child labour in line with UN standards. TdH illustrated its cooperation with the private sector and its child protection work in many developing countries.
Finally, this new training is the tip of the iceberg for change. Sustainability issues will be integrated into all other STSA training courses, both short and long (Certificates). In this way, STSA will contribute to strengthening the Swiss labour market and will keep its participants ahead of the sustainability debate. The participants will be able to understand the challenges of our industry before Switzerland’s competing trading hubs begin to decipher them and identify the available opportunities.
