Environmental management

Most of Vattenfall’s operations are strictly regulated by laws, regulations, and permits – on global, EU, national, regional and local levels.

All business areas are individually responsible for compliance with legislation and other requirements and for identifying, prioritising and implementing initiatives and activities to improve performance. In addition, each unit shall monitor, report and manage environmental risks. Therefore all business areas are required to have access to relevant competence to manage the environmental and sustainability aspects.

On corporate level a Functional Area for Environment has the responsibility to set the environment and sustainability ambition, to follow up on the actual performance and to support the business areas in the area of environmental and sustainability.

Centres of Excellence

As a major player on the European electricity market, Vattenfall has considerable experience and knowledge in the environmental field. We are interested in a wide range of environmental policies, and are a key dialogue partner for European and national policymakers in our core markets.

Under the Vattenfall Functional Area for Environment lies six Centres of Excellence, a kind of advisory board and forum for information exchange. These centres follow and analyse policy developments and cover the fields of Air quality, Biomass Sustainability, Nature Protection and Biodiversity, Soil protection, Waste and residue, and Water protection.

Environmental reporting

Reporting of environmental data is an essential part of Vattenfall’s environmental management. Data is gathered at operation level, and analysed and assessed at staff function. The information is used for various reporting systems, such as GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) and the as a part of our yearly CSR reporting. Above all, the data is used to monitor our own environmental performance and is a vital tool to integrate environmental concern into our business process.

The Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is another important tool to help to assess the environmental impacts of our operations. Based on a full life-cycle analysis, it contains valuable and detailed information from a life cycle perspective for many of our products.