Sustainability
Sustainability is part of our DNA
And our commitment to sustainability reaches far beyond the traditional understanding of the term.
Although producing and enabling the use of clean energy is a fundamental part of what we do, we believe it is our responsibility to do more.
For us, sustainability means creating shared value for all of our stakeholders, whether through funding for communities surrounding our energy plants, community ownership of our projects or ensuring that our developments are built and maintained with support from the local workforce and supply chain.
Sustainability is about safeguarding and enhancing the environment in which we operate. Building relationships with our communities, being transparent and caring in our approach, and redistributing value is at the heart of our every action.
Our sustainable heritage
As an early leader in community engagement, we began building relationships with the communities around our onshore projects in the UK from the very beginning.
Since establishing the first community benefit fund in 2005, we now have successful and trusted community engagement and funding initiatives at all plants in the UK, Sweden, and Norway, as well as some of our projects in Spain, Italy and France.
Our Sustainability charter
In 2022 we supported almost 200 community projects with funding including the refurbishment of community facilities, support for cultural groups to preserve their heritage and contributing to the rebuilding of community health facilities.
The results of our activities speak for themselves – almost half of our projects are now involved in community engagement models and this number is still growing. In Italy we established our first crowdfunding campaign to allow the people living around our plants to invest in renewable energy projects, achieving almost 70 investors and 180% of our target funds. In Spain, we are the first company to be awarded with the Sustainability Seal by UNEF for three agrivoltaic projects.
As a result of many years of refining our sustainable approach, we formalised our commitment in the form of our Sustainability Charter. It represents how we behave and how we implement sustainability throughout our activities.
Creating shared value
We promote the economic participation of local communities by providing the opportunity to invest in our plants through local cooperative schemes
Community development
We support social, education, environmental or infrastructure initiatives in local communities through our community benefit schemes and encourage the sharing of best practice
Training and education
We support the creation of skills, competence and knowledge sharing in relation to energy sustainability through training projects and educational initiatives
Environmental protection
We minimise the impact of our activities on the environment in the areas where we operate
Local supply chain
We encourage the use of local workforces and short supply chains, benefitting local economies and the environment
Our goals
Our sustainability commitments are guided by analysis that provides a snapshot of the sustainability issues that influence our ability to generate and share value.
Our commitments are divided into four focused areas – we call these the 4 Capitals – in which we strive to provide a positive impact. Each of the capitals is measured by a KPI, representing a strategic sustainability goal.
Economic and productive capital
refers to our ability to create shared value. Our innovative business model combines economic sustainability with the generation of social and environmental value, and we measure our progress by tracking the distributed added value of our activities.
Social and relational capital
represents our relationship with communities and local stakeholders, as well as the involvement of the local workforce and short supply chain. Communities are at the core of our operations and make the development of our business possible. We measure our commitment towards social and relational capital by tracking the share of our plants with significant community engagement programmes in place.
Environmental and climate capital
describes our wider commitment to sustainability, beyond just producing clean energy. For us, sustainability centres around our activities having as minimal impact on the environment as possible. It measures our contribution to a just energy transition and our commitment is tracked by the CO2 emissions avoided thanks to wind and solar power production.
Human capital
our people are the heart of our business. This is why we create an environment that champions the development of our employees through learning in a healthy and safe working environment. We track our commitment to this capital by tracking the annual average hours of training per employee.
Through our actions, we contribute specifically to five of the Sustainable Development Goals
3. Good Health and well-being
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
5. Gender equality
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
7. Affordable and clean energy
Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
9. Industry innovation and infrastructure
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
13. Climate action
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
Our Sustainability Report
The Sustainability at the Core – Our shared value report aims to explain how our vision of sustainability inspires business models and activities. In this document, which summarizes our non-financial performance according to the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines, we explain how we produce and sell clean energy, how we provide innovative services, our relationships with local communities, how we protect the environment, the growth of people, our governance and our guiding values.
Highlights 2022
| Economic and productive | € 244.2M The added value distributed to all our stakeholder | 1,420 MW Total installed capacity, of which ⟶ 1,096 MW onshore wind ⟶ 278 MW solar | 3.246 GWh Total energy produced | 10,6 GW Floating offshore wind pipeline ⟶ 5.1 GW in Scotland and the Celtic Sea ⟶ 5.5 GW in Italy |
| Social and relational | 46% Plants with significant community engagement programmes | € 1.6M The value of community benefit schemes (UK, Sweden, Norway, France and Spain) supporting more than 40 communities | First community benefit scheme in France | 2 Call for projects to provide support during the energy crisis for communities in Italy and the UK |
| Environmental and climate | 0.53 MtCO2eq Avoided GHG emissions thanks to ⟶ 3,061 GWh of renewable energy produced | Agrivoltaic approach in Italy, France and Spain | Sustainability Excellence Certificate in Spain for two new renewable projects | 78% Our energy consumption comes from renewable sources |
| Human | 43,6 hours Average yearly training per employee | 50% The percentage of women on the BoD | Top Employer certified again in 2022 | 753 Number of employees (+9% vs 2021) |