Circular Economy

Digital platforms play a decisive role in advancing sustainable consumption. With millions of users across Ricardo, tutti.ch, and anibis.ch, SMG boosts Switzerland’s circular economy at scale. By providing intuitive, trusted peer-to-peer environments, the platforms make circular choices simple and desirable, promoting reuse throughout the country.

SMG’s role in the circular economy

SMG’s Approach to Circularity

The 2025 DMA underscored the importance of the circular economy for SMG, highlighting material positive impacts from platform-facilitated reuse and opportunities for accelerating shifts towards more sustainable consumption. As ultra-fast fashion and low-cost e-commerce drive rising waste and emissions, SMG’s marketplaces offer a counterweight by keeping resources in circulation and expanding access to pre-owned goods.

Over the past 25 years, Ricardo alone has facilitated more than 110 million transactions, illustrating the scale of circular value creation. The platforms can also influence user behaviour by making secondhand purchases as convenient and secure as buying new, encouraging consumers to choose pre-owned items instead of newly produced goods and embedding circularity in everyday choices. In 2025, Ricardo’s efforts were acknowledged in the 2025 Digital Commerce Award in the “Sustainable Business Model” category, underscoring its relevance as a platform that supports more sustainable consumption patterns.

Growing consumer demand for more sustainable options creates an opportunity to broaden SMG's circular economy services and build on its role as a facilitator of circular value creation and long-term differentiation.

This topic is anchored in the sustainability pillar driving positive impact. Enhancing circularity is central to the purpose of the marketplaces, and SMG systematically measures climate benefits associated with secondhand transactions. The focus remains on reducing environmental impact, encouraging circular behaviours, and continuously boosting the quality of environmental insights linked to marketplace activity.

Platform and Service Innovations Support Circular Consumption

Continuous enhancement of SMG’s digital platforms and services supports greater participation in secondhand markets. Improvements in functionality and user experience help ensure that pre-owned goods are easy to find, list, and purchase.

Ricardo AI continues to support secondhand participation. For sellers, the feature reduces the effort required to create effective listings, lowering barriers to resale. In 2025, Ricardo AI facilitated the creation of 3.1 million listings, around 70% of which related to secondhand items. AI-supported listings increased by over 150% year-on-year and accounted for approximately 25% of all listings on the platform.

For buyers, this makes searching more intuitive and efficient. Ricardo AI-assisted searches increased fivefold year-on-year to 10.5 million (previous year: 2.1 million), improving discoverability.

Trust and transaction security are equally important enablers of circular consumption. On Ricardo, secure payment solutions with MoneyGuard help ensure that secondhand transactions are as safe and reliable as buying new.

Ricardo’s collaboration with Swiss Post enables home pickup of parcels sold on the platform, reducing effort for sellers and making resale easier. The display of avoided emissions at product level further helps users understand the climate benefits of secondhand purchases and supports more informed decision-making.

Quantifying the Impact

In 2025, over six million items were sold on Ricardo alone. The share of secondhand transactions remained stable at around 70% year-on-year and continued to account for approximately 76% of Ricardo’s total product revenue.

Across Ricardo, tutti.ch, and anibis.ch, more than four million in-scope secondhand transactions generated 74,262 tCO₂e of net avoided emissions in 2025, the equivalent of over 28,000 round-trip flights between Zurich and New York, per individual passenger, (previous year: 71,438 tCO₂e).

Avoided emissions are influenced by transaction volumes, product category mix, and the methodological boundaries applied to the analysis. The year-on-year change in 2025 reflects these combined factors.

This figure reflects the net climate benefit of re-commerce. It captures the difference between emissions avoided when secondhand purchases replace new products and the emissions generated by deliveries, packaging, and platform operations that enable those transactions. For further details on the methodology, see Methodology for Net Avoided Emissions.

This analysis demonstrates to SMG’s customers that choosing secondhand truly makes a difference, and can inspire more people to participate in circular consumption. For SMG, the insights help improve transparency and guide its strategy. The Group will continue to monitor progress, with the ambition of increasing avoided emissions as Switzerland embraces the circular economy. View the full 2024 Avoided Emissions Report here.

Enabling Growth in Switzerland’s Circular Economy

Accelerating circular consumption in Switzerland requires broad public awareness and a base of strong evidence on the environmental benefits of reuse. SMG contributes by enabling large-scale access to secondhand markets and generating insights into their climate and behavioural impact. A 2024 market analysis, to which SMG contributed, estimated that secondhand transactions on Switzerland’s online marketplaces avoided a total of over 160,000 tCO₂e. Since households account for about two-thirds of Switzerland’s emissions,¹¹ reducing consumption-based emissions is essential to meeting national climate targets.

A 2025 McKinsey’s analysis of Switzerland’s online marketplaces identified substantial untapped potential. An estimated CHF 16 billion in unused goods sitting idle in Swiss households represents a major lever for the circular economy. Unlocking this inventory could substantially amplify the climate benefits of circular consumption in Switzerland, underscoring the importance of making circular choices more visible, intuitive, and accessible.

Against this backdrop, SMG focuses on initiatives that raise awareness, promote behavioural change, and expand participation in circular consumption nationwide.

Secondhand Day: Incentivising Conscious Consumption

Secondhand Day was initiated by Ricardo in partnership with Circular Economy Switzerland and myclimate. Entering its sixth year in 2025, it has evolved into a nationwide movement for conscious consumption. Hundreds of “Circular Heroes” – including online marketplaces, secondhand shops, and vintage retailers – took part in activities and promotions designed to raise awareness of sustainable consumption.

In 2025 there was increased focus on behavioural change and consumer-friendly incentives. Ricardo offered free shipping on a wide range of secondhand items during the campaign period, and a high-profile charity auction featuring the outfit worn by Eurovision Song Contest winner Nemo increased campaign visibility. Offline engagement included activities by the Circular Heroes and a flea market in Zurich, attended by more than 2,000 visitors.

The campaign achieved broad national visibility through coordinated digital outreach and extensive media coverage. During the campaign period, GM platforms recorded an approximately 40% increase in secondhand transaction volume compared to an average period. This clearly illustrates the impact of these incentives and targeted awareness efforts.

Employee and Community Initiatives for Circularity

SMG employee engagement also helps advance circular practices. The Ricardo Challenge encouraged employees to give unused items a second life through resale, reinforcing individual participation in circular behaviours. In 2025, SMG’s Vietnam office also ran a month-long campaign, collecting unused items from employees.

Ricardo contributes to the sustainable fashion movement through a collaboration with Projekt Restwert/Plusvalue in Lausanne. This year-round hub for pre-loved fashion offers a curated selection of secondhand and vintage items and provides a space for local sellers to connect with conscious consumers to foster a community centred on sustainability.

Looking Ahead

SMG aims to further boost circular consumption in Switzerland by enabling seamless secondhand transactions, reducing logistics-related barriers, and helping households resell unused goods. Platform innovation – including the responsible use of AI – supports discoverability, streamlines listing processes, and increases transparency around the climate benefits of circular choices. To reach more users and promote circular behaviour at scale, SMG also plans to step up its awareness initiatives and partnerships. These efforts aim to increase avoided emissions over time and make circular consumption more accessible and attractive.