Swiss greenhouses pledge to run without fossil fuels by 2040

By 2040, Swiss greenhouses without fossil fuels should be heated. At an event of the Swiss Association of Agricultural Journalists (SAJ) in Buchs, VSGP director Matija Nuic pointed out the goals of the association. By the end of 2030, greenhouses should be 80% fossil-free and 100% fossil-free by the end of 2040. It is a strategy that poses a challenge, as VSGP director Matija Nuic pointed out.

Some progress has already been made with measures such as heat shields or better insulation, Nuic told lid.ch. “thus, CO2 emissions per square meter have been reduced by 35%,” he said. “With these economic measures, we were able to achieve a lot, but we wondered what else we could get out of it,” Nuic explained. He said that when the association started to investigate this more intensively, it realized that this was also what customers and consumers wanted. “We have to provide added value. If we can show that a tomato or a cucumber from Switzerland is more sustainable in terms of energy consumption, that’s a good selling point.”