Making our organisation sustainable
The energy system of the future should facilitate the ambitions of the Netherlands in terms of economic growth, sustainability and prosperity. We are aware of the social impact we have as a network operator. That is why we have constantly updated and refined our CSR policy in recent years. We are now building on that, based on the principle of ‘general prosperity’.
In the sustainability statement in this report, we present our material issues in extensive detail. In this chapter, we will discuss the principle of general prosperity and provide more background information on issues related to it.
Targeting general prosperity
General prosperity means that, when acting to pursue our economic prosperity, we no longer pass on bills to later generations and other continents. It expresses an aspiration to act in both a socially responsible manner (social cohesion, health and human rights) and an ecologically responsible manner (biodiversity, raw materials and climate). This way of thinking and acting is already firmly embedded in many parts of our organisation. Last year we worked on an integrated general prosperity policy framework, in which we brought together our goals and ambitions for the future.
General prosperity assumes that, when acting to pursue economic prosperity, bills are no longer passed on to later generations and other continents.
With general prosperity, we monitor the pace of the energy transition and commit to shaping it in an ecologically and socially fair way. To achieve this, we include broad social impact in our decision-making, set clear society-oriented goals in relation to climate, circularity and being a good employer, and report on our impact. By working together, we can learn from each other and we hope to accelerate progress in relation to general prosperity. Together with other network operators, we committed to participating in a collaboration on Managing for General Prosperity in 2024. Several work flows have been defined for this purpose, including the development of general prosperity-weighting tools, harmonisation of calculations and schooling and training initiatives for colleagues.
Alliander started to visualise its impact on society based on six ‘capitals’ back in 2017, and reports on them annually in its annual reports. The six capitals are derived from the International Integrated Reporting Guidelines (IIRC). They also form the basis of the Impact Weighted Account Framework (IWAF) for measuring, reporting and managing impact. This framework is also the fundamental premise in our collaboration with infrastructure companies. The six capitals are the starting point for arriving at policies on general prosperity. They are:
Financial capital.
Manufactured capital.
Intellectual capital.
Human capital.
Social capital.
Natural capital.
In the chapter entitled Our contribution to general prosperity , we quantify the positive and negative impact we have with our activities in relation to the six capitals.
Link to the CSRD
There is a clear link between the general prosperity policy framework and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The CSRD requires Alliander not only to report on material issues, but also demands clear objectives and a clear policy cycle. The general prosperity policy framework is reviewed and updated each year. Alliander is currently working on a second edition of the general prosperity policy framework. In other words, the CSRD requires us to set targets and the general prosperity policy dictates the ambitiousness of those targets. In this reporting year, we have accounted for our activities and policy in line with the requirements of the CSRD for the first time. This information is provided in our sustainability statement in this report.
Natural capital: entrepreneurship within the planetary limits
The energy transition mitigates climate change and reduces our footprint on the natural environment. However, growing infrastructure has a negative impact on nature development and biodiversity: it requires extensive construction activity, calls for the use of raw materials, crosses ecological areas and can hinder nature development.
Climate-neutral operations
Alliander operates in a climate-neutral manner, partly thanks to green certificates. This means that, on balance, we emitted no CO2 through our own operations last year (scope 1 and 2). We achieved this in recent years by progressively reducing carbon emissions in various areas and by greening our activities. Our vehicle fleet is increasingly electric, energy usage in our buildings is falling, we are focusing on limiting and greening our grid losses and we are acting to sharply reduce the electricity consumed by our IT systems. We are also reducing our chain-related carbon emissions (scope 3). These include the emissions released by our suppliers when making, transporting and delivering products and providing services to Alliander.
We are continuing to electrify our vehicle fleet, specifically passenger cars and operational vehicles, which also leads to further reductions in our absolute carbon emissions. We are seeing electrification being scaled up in bus services. In 2024, we joined the ‘Coalitie Anders Reizen’ (travelling differently coalition), an alliance of companies committed to making business travel more sustainable. In 2024, we worked on a new mobility policy with sustainability as one of its guiding principles.
Reduction of carbon emissions an integral part of business operations
Given Alliander's immense task and the growth in the number of employees, embedding the reduction of carbon emissions in our daily choices remains extremely importance. With this in mind, we firstly increased our internal CO2 price further, together with all the other network operators, to €150 per tonne CO2 in 2023. This means that energy saving is now given greater priority in our decision-making. Secondly, we once again achieved level 5 on the CO2 Performance Ladder in 2024. This year's audit identified points for improvement, which we have successfully implemented. The Performance Ladder is a review framework that helps us comply with the SBTi and monitor the quality of our reporting under the CSRD. Moreover, our approach here sets an example for all our chain partners, whom we expect to act in the same way.
Supply chain responsibility
The energy transition requires an annual procurement expenditure of roughly €2.6 billion for products and services needed within the envelope of Alliander’s total operations. This will increase considerably in the coming years. Contractors, components, IT and energy purchases are the main areas of procurement expenditure. Our societal role means that our procurement needs to be socially responsible. Our goal is to always weigh up and compare price, quality and sustainability when procuring parts, materials and services.
Together with our suppliers, we aim to make a net positive contribution in the area of responsible production and consumption. We do so by entering into new forms of collaboration with our suppliers, adopting innovations as they appear on the market and by starting partnerships. Our procurement department upholds the principles of procurement law, such as being transparent and non-discriminatory. In our tenders, we give maximum possible attention to energy consumption in our award criteria.
Clean and emission-free construction covenant
Through Netbeheer Nederland, Alliander supports the objectives of the national Clean and Emission-Free Construction covenant. In our work for TenneT, we examine the feasibility and consequences of the covenant, which targets achieving zero carbon and nitrogen emissions for all vehicles and equipment in 2028. The expansion project at our Harderwijk substation serves as a model for this.
CO2 in the chain
In 2024, carbon emissions and energy usage were included in large contracts put out to tender. CO2 plays a role primarily in relation to energy-consuming components, such as transformers and cables, and in the contracting industry. In the case of contractors, we mainly ask them to answer questions about CO2 management and state how they contribute to clean and emission-free construction and working methods. The objective here is to be emission-free in 2030.
Circular economy
Many (critical) materials are needed for successful realisation of the energy transition. To ensure careful use of the raw materials available to us, we aim to organise their inflow, use and outflow with consideration for people and the planet. By applying circular measures, we reduce our use of primary raw materials and limit carbon emissions. In the process, we increase supply availability and can better anticipate the maintenance of older installations that cannot be replaced or do not yet need replacement. Repurposing materials boosts the task feasibility of the energy transition, lowers costs in the longer term and reduces ecological damage.
We analyse how much material has been repurposed and how much we procure circularly every quarter. Circular procurement consists of the percentage of recycled material incorporated into goods procured and the percentage of material that is recyclable at the end of its useful life. In 2024 we purchased 39% of our key assets on a circular basis. In the component mix, the share of transformers obtained through circular procurement increased.
In 2024, we organised dialogues on three themes in collaboration with Gasunie and Enexis, to explore approaches to resolving issues standing in the way of circularity: circular power cables, ‘boosting’ existing transformers and circular (plastic) gas pipelines. The results are described in a joint report published by the collaborating parties: ‘Towards a Circular Energy Infrastructure’.
Biodiversity
When we build and construct infrastructure, facilities and stations, we must comply with the spatial conditions in the Dutch Nature Protection Act. In addition to that statutory duty, we focus on minimising or mitigating damage to biodiversity in our scheduled operational processes. In 2024, we launched the Biodiversity for Network Companies control model. We use this model to gather and organise information as a point of departure for initiating improvement. The control model focuses primarily on the actual changes an organisation could make and which business units are responsible for making them. We also launched the first version of our proprietary Inspirational Guide to Biodiversity in May. The guide provides an overview of measures that have already proven themselves in practice and that can serve as a starting point for new Alliander policies. In 2024, biodiversity was included in the main site management and maintenance contracts, and a pilot project to investigate the effects of a different approach to mowing in outdoor switching areas was completed. That trial, conducted in collaboration with the Butterfly Foundation, shows that removing grass clippings reduces the height of the vegetation at the site and leads to increased biodiversity in terms of plants and insects. This approach will allow us to reduce the frequency of grass mowing over time.
Green bond loans
Alliander issued green bond loans at different times in 2024. The capital attracted through a ‘green’ bond loan may only be spent on projects that contribute to a better environment and meeting climate targets.
Social and human capital
In 2024, we formulated our contribution to Alliander's ‘social and human capital’ in further detail. We have identified four tracks here:
All the policies we make on diversity and inclusion, and for the health, vitality and welfare of our own employees.
Our policy on employee well-being in our chains. In connection with this, we performed a risk analysis for our main chains.
The theme of energy poverty. In 2024, we investigated which scenario provides the most social value under our disconnection policy. This resulted in advocating persistent follow-up of early-warning cases and more intensive collaboration with the energy bank, a platform of energy coaches with enormous reach in the Netherlands.
The social impact of our work in neighbourhoods. We developed new concepts for greater engagement. To emphasise this, we installed a transformer station with a picnic table in the municipality of Arnhem to clearly communicate that numerous extra transformer stations will be built and that we are always willing to talk about the purpose and spatial impact of the energy transition.