Our sustainability management defines the standards, processes, and responsibilities for sustainability at EnBW. They constitute the organizational framework for our sustainability activities and initiatives such as the EnBW Sustainability Agenda. Our management approach is guided by our and our stakeholders’ material topics as well as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Our stakeholders
We engage in continuous dialog with our internal and external stakeholders to make decisions in line with their needs and expectations. To this end, we offer appropriate dialog formats such as the events of our Energy and Climate Protection Foundation. Engaging with critical opinions is particularly important to us to identify the material topics and risks for EnBW’s sustainable business success at an early stage.
Learn more about stakeholder engagement at EnBW in the Integrated Annual Report from page 42 onwards.
Materiality analysis
In terms of content, our sustainability management is based on the environmental, social, and economic topics that are of material importance to both our stakeholders and our long-term business success. We identify these by means of materiality analysis, in which we progressively prioritize the topics relevant for strategy and communications from a sustainability and reputational perspective. In addition to the Supervisory Board’s key topics and current developments, we base our decisions on our non-financial statement, the International Reporting Framework, and the standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
In addition to the material topics, our sustainability management is targeted at the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our contribution focuses on four central SDGs:
Our activities also contribute to five further SDGs: Quality education (4.), Gender equality (5.), Clean water and sanitation (6.), Decent work and economic growth (8.), Responsible consumption and production (12.).
Environment
We address environmental and climate protection as one of the major challenges for the entire Group, a challenge we aim to meet with coherent targets and action plans.
EnBW is aware of its shared responsibility for the environment. In our activities, we specifically take into account climate change mitigation, conserving biodiversity and using natural resources as carefully as possible.
Governance
In the area of sustainable corporate governance, we integrate matters such as sustainability in the investment approval process, compliance and climate risks into our management and control processes.
In implementing the TCFD recommendations at governance level in recent years, we further integrated environmental and climate targets and indicators alongside social sustainability criteria into the Group-wide investment approval process. This work was based on a revision of the Group investment policy that already took place in 2018. From financial year 2021 onwards, a sustainability assessment is an integral part of and an additional relevant information element for approval by the EnBW Investment Committee.
Our goal of climate neutrality by 2035 will also guide future decisions in corporate governance in order to consistently establish our contribution to climate action throughout the Group.
Social
In the area of social responsibility, we apply relevant standards and measures to ensure responsibility towards our employees and in our supply chain.