Investments and expenditures in the areas of environment, safety, and health protection (ESH) are usually triggered by specific events. These could be altered security or occupational safety requirements or, in the environmental area, external requirements such as stricter emissions or waste water limit values. In addition, new production or product changes often require new construction or changes to existing facilities. These are recorded as the ESH component of overall investment. This makes ESH investments a component of the general investment planning and not the subject of an isolated cost-benefit view with distinct capital recovery periods.

The total amount of ESH investments in 2015 was about CHF 23 million, of which 53 % was spent on process and plant safety, 7 % on health/safety, 10 % on fire protection, and 27 % on environmental protection, with focus on waste water and air emissions. The expenditures for environmental protection, safety, and health protection in the operative facilities amounted to over CHF 151 million in 2015, of which CHF 83 million were used for environmental protection alone.

Investments for the reduction of energy consumption are a different story. The aim is to secure permanent resource and cost savings and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A secondary condition of this planning is an amortization period of less than five year for corresponding investments.