A Promise That Has to Be Proven
Hardly any sentence appears as often on the websites of family businesses as this one: we run our business sustainably, and have done so for generations. Long-term thinking, responsibility for the region and employees, a name that stands for quality. For many owner families, this is not marketing but a lived self-understanding. Research has a term for it: socio-emotional wealth, that is, the non-financial value that a family draws from its company. It includes identity, reputation, ties to the region and handing the business on to the next generation.
The public sees it the same way: in a population survey from 2025, family businesses were the most likely to be credited with running their business sustainably.¹ And their economic weight is enormous, in Germany as in Austria:
- 46% of the turnover of the German private sector
- 18.3 million employees in German family businesses
- 50% of Austrian companies (excluding one-person businesses) are family businesses
- 63% of the employees in the Austrian market-oriented economy work there
Sources: Stiftung Familienunternehmen / ZEW (2025)², KMU Forschung Austria on behalf of the WKÖ (data basis 2019)³
But a head start in trust is not yet evidence. And more and more bodies are demanding exactly that.
Trust Can No Longer Be Taken for Granted
74% of executives in family businesses worldwide are convinced that their company is trusted more than companies without a family connection.⁴ Long-running trust surveys show, however, that this lead is shrinking: the trust gap to other companies halved from 16 to 8 points between 2015 and 2025.⁵ Trust is therefore no longer a given, but has to be actively earned.
The head start in trust is a good starting position, but not proof. Anyone who wants to keep it needs figures that stand up to scrutiny.
Three Directions, One Demand: Evidence
The pressure does not come from one direction, but from three at the same time. It hits family businesses particularly hard because many of them work in production and construction and are therefore right in the middle of the supply chains of large customers. In Austria, 62% of the companies in this sector are family businesses; across all industries, the figure is 50%.³
- Customers and supply chain. Large customers request emissions data, ratings and ESG questionnaires from their suppliers, regardless of whether the suppliers themselves are subject to reporting obligations. In the German Mittelstand, 54% each name their own customers and their own reputation as drivers of their sustainability efforts. 62% plan voluntary sustainability reporting, for example according to VSME or GRI, even if they would no longer be obliged to under the Omnibus plans.⁶
- Banks. Under the guidelines of the European Banking Authority, banks must systematically integrate ESG risks into their lending processes and need data from their customers for this. In Germany, 37% of SMEs with 50 or more employees that negotiated loans in 2024 report that sustainability came up in the process, compared with 34% the year before. In manufacturing, the share across all SME sizes rose from 20% to 24%.⁷
- Legislators. Since 27 September 2026, the new rules of the EmpCo Directive have applied, implemented in Austria through the amendment to the Federal Act against Unfair Competition (UWG) and in Germany through the UWG amendment of February 2026.⁸ General environmental claims such as “sustainable” or “environmentally friendly” are only permitted in advertising to consumers if the company can demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance, for example through the EU Ecolabel. We have summarised what EmpCo specifically regulates in our article on the EmpCo Directive. EmpCo does not directly affect pure B2B suppliers. They still feel its effect as soon as their customers have to substantiate environmental claims towards consumers.
What all three directions have in common: attitude alone no longer counts, only evidence does.
What the Special Report Shows: Proof Moves into Focus
Together with sustainability people and EY, we examined in a special report how sustainability management works in family businesses. To do so, we compared the responses of 160 sustainability managers from family businesses with those of 376 colleagues from other companies, based on the sustainability people Report 2026.⁹ A clear picture emerges.
At first glance, the result is surprising: for the core tasks, there are hardly any differences. Reporting, strategy development and climate management rank equally high in both groups. The picture is clearly different for two tasks that arise exactly where someone from outside demands proof: sustainability ratings and ESG compliance. Both are becoming increasingly important in the role of sustainability managers in family businesses.
What Companies Should Do Now
This results in four starting points:
- Review claims. Collect sustainability claims on the website, on packaging and in offers, and either back them with data or adjust them.
- Bundle requests. Ratings, customer questionnaires and bank questionnaires usually ask for the same indicators. Collected cleanly once, they answer many requests.
- Build on what exists. Use management systems, audits and certificates from quality management and operations instead of building parallel structures.
- Document decisions. Short decision paths are a strength. Even so, material ESG decisions should be recorded in a traceable way. More on this in EY's ten impulses in the special report.
How NetCero Helps
The common thread is clear: in family businesses, sustainability is becoming proof work. And proof needs a data basis that holds. This is exactly where NetCero comes in.
- One data basis for many requests. Energy, emissions by Scope 1, 2 and 3 and other ESG indicators are recorded once in a structured way and are then available for ratings, customer requests, bank discussions and VSME or ESRS reports.
- Every figure traceable to its source. Activity data, emission factors and source documents are linked to each other, and every change is documented without gaps in the audit trail. Auditors receive their own auditor access.
- Relief for small teams. Data points can be assigned, with owners, deadlines and automatic reminders, to colleagues in production, purchasing or HR, with a four-eyes principle and approval workflow instead of email ping-pong.
Practical. Pragmatic. Audit-proof. NetCero turns the head start in trust into resilient proof.
The Special Report for Download
The full special report “Sustainability Management in Family Businesses” by sustainability people in cooperation with NetCero and EY provides the data and practical context:
- Where is sustainability anchored organisationally in family businesses, and what follows from that?
- How do budgets differ, and what are they used for?
- What does sustainability work in logistics, industry and trade look like in concrete terms? Voices from practice.
- Ten impulses from EY for effective sustainability management in family businesses.
