This study was commissioned by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and was prepared by the University of Zürich (Switzerland). This first attempt of analyzing flows of climate finance from the private sector in Switzerland provides a number of initial findings, some of which are:

• Estimating private climate finance mobilized by Switzerland is very challenging because of missing definitions, and no established measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) systems

• It is not possible to assign a monetary value to several private sector activities with climate benefits, e.g. research & development, training or transfer of climate-friendly technologies to developing countries

• Based on questionnaires filled by the private sector, the study identifies at least CHF 0.2-0.8 billion of private finance that is annually mobilized by Switzerland and contributes to climate change mitigation and adaptation activities in developing countries.

• Based on likely Swiss shares of global figures, private climate finance mobilized by Switzerland is estimated at CHF 0.5-2.7 billion per year.

• As long as no international definitions are available, it seems to be warranted to focus on the flows to be included in the 2014 biennial update report to the UNFCCC private finance mobilized by governmental agencies.

• For other flows, it may be recommendable to wait for international decisions that provide the necessary guidance on which private flows are to be considered before building up costly MRV systems.

• MRV is just one of two key questions in relation to private finance as part of long-term climate finance. The second, and for the climate regime the most important question is how to mobilize private finance for climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.