How We Work On Sustainability

Business as a force for good

We’re committed to using business as a force for good. That’s why we work in a systematic and programmatic way on our sustainability strategy.

Over the past decade, we’ve transformed from one of Europe’s most carbon-intensive energy companies to a global green energy leader. We’ve been ranked the world’s most sustainable energy company and among the world’s most sustainable companies in the Global 100 index by Corporate Knights, three years in a row. We ranked #1 overall in the 2020 index, and #2 overall in 2021.

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Our green transformation journey has shaped how we work on sustainability, making it a core part of our strategic thinking.

— Mads Nipper, CEO

To deliver a world that runs entirely on green energy, we’re continuing our build-out of renewable energy. And we need to continue to do that in a sustainable way for the sake of society and the environment.

A systematic and programmatic approach

Over the years, we’ve honed a systematic and programmatic approach for mapping, prioritising, and addressing the sustainability themes impacting our business and our stakeholders. Based on five core phases, this approach enables us to identify sustainability themes that are most important to our business, build programmes to address them, and report on the progress we make in each programme. This process directly informs our wider business strategy and operations.

Identifying key sustainability themes

Our sustainability work starts with our stakeholders. We engage with a broad range of people – including customers, employees, researchers, policy makers, regulators, investors, NGOs and local communities – to clearly understand the sustainability themes that are most important to them. Each year, we map the themes encountered in these dialogues and rank them to produce a matrix of themes, prioritised by stakeholder and business importance. This enables us to identify and address the most important sustainability themes to our business and report on progress throughout the year.

1. Mapping

Map sustainability themes important to our business and stakeholders

2. Prioritising

Understand how each theme affects us and our stakeholders and prioritise accordingly

3. Anchoring

Anchor prioritised sustainability themes in our management and governance

4. Developing

Update our portfolio of sustainability programmes to address priority themes

5. Realising and reporting

Report and communicate the progress of our programmes and any challenges faced

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Developing and updating sustainability programmes

We develop sustainability programmes for the highest-priority themes. Working programmatically allows us to integrate sustainability in our daily business processes. In practice, that means developing concrete targets and understanding the actions necessary to reach them, as well as assigning clear responsibility for the execution of each programme. The sustainability landscape is dynamic, with themes evolving as specific challenges increase and new knowledge becomes available. Accordingly, we continuously update our existing programmes to reflect such changes.

1. Anchor project

Building the management processes to develop a new programme

2. Understand context

Understand the challenges within the theme and best practice to address it

3. Identify options

Identify a broad set of options to address the sustainability theme

4. Select options

Select the best options for us to work on the sustainability theme

5. Realise options

Implement the new programme in our business operations

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Three key sustainability themes

As per our sustainability themes analysis in 2020, three sustainability themes are particularly important for driving a sustainable green energy build-out: decarbonising our supply chains to achieve full carbon neutrality by 2040; further improve biodiversity management to build in balance with local habitats and species within these ecosystems; and developing systematic engagement to create shared value with local communities.