V-ZUG’s Melbourne showroom
At Melbourne’s new V-ZUG showroom, we spoke with Head of Sustainability Marcel Niederberger about the brands’ commitment to durability, longevity, and enduring design.
V-ZUG’s sustainability reporting began more than a decade before mandatory reporting was introduced in Switzerland. When was your sustainability report last completed?
This report is the 14th edition. For the last two years, every stock exchange company in Switzerland, above a certain turnover, needs to report on non-financial figures, which means sustainability. So, we were well prepared.
How can design support people to have an ecological behaviour?
This is something that we have in our design guidelines, but we are not there yet. That means, for example, a dishwasher tells you: wouldn’t you try the eco-management program overnight? Because that reduces the energy and the water consumption three times. That’s the way we think we can influence consumers while using the appliance.
V-ZUG’s headquarters has been carbon neutral for years. Have you seen any stand-out examples of sustainable residential design in your visit to Australia?
One of my first impressions was how cold it felt inside my hotel one morning. Later that day, I visited the multi-residential C. Street projects by Neil Architecture, an example of Passivhaus design principles. Connected to a solar array and insulated to global Passivhaus standards, these projects thoughtfully incorporate V-ZUG appliances.
It was inspiring to see how this standard is being applied locally, with stronger insulation, triple-glazed windows, solar panels, and a design that requires no heating at all. At nine in the morning, the house was a comfortable 20 degrees inside without any heating—simply because the temperature was retained.
This showed me two things: firstly, there’s still enormous potential to improve housing efficiency and insulation in Australia. And secondly, it demonstrates just how much can be achieved when sustainable design principles are carefully applied.
North-facing townhouses designed by Neil Architecture feature triple glazing, solar array and V-ZUG appliances.
Can you tell us about the product as a service initiative?
We have a product as a service in place, which means the product still belongs to us. And if something breaks, we are responsible to go there and fix it at our own cost. We started in Germany with the first project, but it’s predominantly right now for the home market in Switzerland.
What we offer here in Australia is a 10-year warranty, that’s very, I would say, very similar because it ensures that you don’t have to do anything for the next 10 years. If something happens, we will come and it’s at our own cost.
How does this reduce the environmental impact over the long term?
So, the service aspect is one thing, but the second one, and this is even more important for a circular economy, is that at the end of life, the appliance still belongs to us. So, we get the appliance back. Recycling means today shredding an appliance, really shredding it and then separating the different kinds of materials. And it is always mixed fractions that you get. So, it’s still often down-cycling and value gets destroyed in a recycling process.
What’s beyond recycling for V-ZUG? Can you explain this further?
Not shredding anymore. That means taking the appliance apart. The ideal case is reusing direct material, and that’s already true for some parts. But it also influences product design. Before we develop a new product, we look at the old one and clarify what of these items can be still used in the next generation, not developing everything new.
I’m in Switzerland, where we have our manufacturing, which doesn’t really have a lot of raw material. So, to make us a bit more independent of global supply chains, a circular economy is a very important approach, because we believe there is sufficient material in Europe already. So, we just need to become our own supplier of raw material, for example through reuse.
“Beyond recycling lies a circular economy—and that means no more shredding. It's about carefully taking an appliance apart and remaking it.”
– V-ZUG head of sustainability, Marcel Niederberger
