Responsible land use

The nature of Vattenfall’s operations, with large power plants, dams, open-cast mines, wind farms and electricity networks, has a physical and visual impact on the landscape.

Vattenfall’s most significant land use pertains to electric distribution corridors, power plants – especially hydro power plants – and lignite mining operations in Germany.

Vattenfall carefully manages land and soil where we operate. We take responsibility for any soil pollution around our power plants and work to restore all areas affected by our operations, for example by lignite mining.

Therefore, lignite mining and re-cultivation of mined areas are two phases of the same operation. Our ongoing re-cultivation programmes restore areas affected by open-cast lignite mining.

The re-cultivation programme in Lausitz in Germany is one example of the restoration work carried out by Vattenfall. Since its start in the 19th century, lignite mining and other human activities in Lausitz have considerably changed the landscape. Through our re-cultivation programmes, we aim to create an attractive, post-industrial Lausitz landscape. We want to establish sustainable agriculture, forestry and water management in the post-mining areas as well as a desirable level of biodiversity and a harmonic landscape with possibilities for outdoor life.

We are also working hard to limit soil contamination caused by our operations. In all countries where we operate, we have sites with contaminated ground. Most of this contaminated soil is a result of activities many years ago. At the time there was no environmental legislation and we fulfilled the environmental requirements of that time. Since then, the knowledge and regulations have intensified and become more proactive and we are now taking active steps to improve these sites.

We carefully manage the environment around our power plants, mines, transmission lines and transformer stations. In the Nordic countries and in Germany, all of the contaminated sites have been identified and categorised and are undergoing so-called control programmes.

Read more in the CSR report, page 11.
CSR report 2011 (PDF 4 MB)