Serviced Apartments: What a Responsible Business Means for Us

Our EcoVadis journey began with a request from a corporate client.

It started with one requirement from a corporate client: “Our suppliers must hold a recognised sustainability accreditation.”

The timing couldn’t have been better. We were already exploring sustainability accreditations as part of our rebranding from At Home Switzerland to Cityus. Responsible business practices were an important part of this new chapter, and the rebrand gave us the opportunity to formalise our commitments, review how we operate and identify areas for improvement.

So, we decided to undertake the EcoVadis assessment. We saw it as an opportunity to look more closely at our own business – not simply to have a rating to share, but to review our existing practices and understand what responsible business meant for us as a growing serviced apartment operator.

Starting with an honest view of our industry

Before we filled in a single form, the first step was to acknowledge the reality of the industry we operate in.

Global mobility has a significant environmental footprint. International assignments, employee relocations and business travel mean people moving across countries, often by air. As a serviced apartment operator supporting this industry, we don’t pretend it is a green sector, and that many aspects of its environmental impact sit outside our direct control.

For us, acknowledging this is an essential first step toward taking ownership where we can genuinely make an impact.
It helps us focus on the areas where our decisions can make a difference – from the buildings we manage and operate and the suppliers we work with, to how our own teams work and how we engage with our guests.

What EcoVadis tells you

Today, procurement, HR, and global mobility teams are increasingly looking beyond location, pricing, and service quality, with environmental responsibility, ethical governance, and supply chain transparency becoming part of supplier evaluation.

With dozens of disparate assessment frameworks and accreditations available, each with different requirements and methodologies, independent assessments like EcoVadis offer a common language for companies to evaluate and communicate their approach to responsible business.

EcoVadis assesses a company’s management systems across four areas: Environment, Labour & Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement. It evaluates policies, actions and results, providing corporate clients with an independent view of how their suppliers approach responsible business practices.

However, an EcoVadis rating does not certify individual apartments or mean that every stay is carbon neutral. For Cityus, its value lies in reviewing our own practices, identifying opportunities for improvement and demonstrating our commitment to responsible business to our clients and partners.

Responsibility in a shared ecosystem

Corporate housing operates within a complex ecosystem of property owners, suppliers, employees and international guests, each influencing its environmental impact in different ways.

Take Switzerland, for example, where air conditioning is heavily restricted in residential buildings. A guest arriving from a warmer country, accustomed to using air conditioning daily, may need to adapt to an entirely different way of managing indoor temperatures. The same applies to heating during Swiss winters, water consumption or waste sorting, where local infrastructure and everyday habits can vary significantly from one country to another.

For a serviced apartment operator like Cityus, the challenge is not only to manage the properties responsibly, but also to help international guests understand local practices and adapt their habits. While we cannot control every aspect of their daily consumption, we can provide guidance, encourage more responsible living and work closely with property owners and suppliers to improve our overall impact.

So we establish clear standards and work on the pieces we can influence:

1. The buildings we choose. Alongside location, security and quality, we look at environmental performance aspects. In newer properties, that means insulation, heating systems and energy-saving technology. We cannot change every aspect of a building’s infrastructure, but we can make informed choices about the properties we operate.
2. The guests we welcome. People live independently in our apartments, and their day-to-day habits shape heating, cooling, and water consumption. We send regular eco-living email campaigns with practical tips on energy efficiency and waste management, and explain how local systems work, so they can live comfortably.
3. The partners we work with. For cleaning, laundry and maintenance providers, we look beyond cost and quality. We ask about transparency, work ethics, the products they use and whether their vehicles are energy-efficient.
4. Our own team. Responsibility starts with us. At Cityus, we have established internal policies and introduced several initiatives to encourage more responsible practices. These include our hybrid working model to reduce daily commuting, encouraging car-sharing to the office, and recycling or donating unused IT equipment to Swiss associations. These are just a few examples of our ongoing efforts. We regularly review our practices and explore new initiatives, from reducing single-use plastics in our apartments to encouraging more environmentally conscious habits across our teams and operations.

Responsibility doesn’t mean controlling everything. It means knowing where you can make a difference, setting clear standards and working with the people involved to keep improving.

What we’ve learnt

Achieving EcoVadis Gold – scoring 73/100 in 2023 and progressing to 77/100 in 2025 has provided invaluable structure to our operations.

While we are proud of this progress, the assessment also gave us something valuable beyond the rating itself: it helped integrate responsible business practices into our pan-European serviced apartment operation.
The process helped us review our internal practices, understand where we could strengthen them, where commitments needed to be formalised, and how we could communicate our practices more clearly to clients and partners.

A continuous process

Responsible business is not a checkbox; it is a commitment to continuous improvement, especially when the impact is shared across so many hands.

As Cityus grows its portfolio of furnished apartments in cities like Zurich, Geneva and Paris, we want to keep building these considerations into how we operate – working with our partners, reviewing our practices and identifying where practical improvements are possible.

We’re not claiming serviced apartment management can be entirely environmentally friendly.
But we can understand our part in it, take responsibility for the areas we can influence and keep improving them over time.

For Cityus, a serviced apartment operator, that’s an ongoing job, and we intend to keep at it.