Management of material issues
The management manages the company based on various aspects of social entrepreneurship, as part of the strategy card. These aspects include promoting health and safety at work, ensuring a reliable and accessible energy supply, reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions, contributing to the energy transition and controlling costs. As part of the strategy card, these aspects also fall within the scope of audits and are reported to the Supervisory Board.
Enexis applies an integrated management system, comprising both financial and non-financial material issues. This is described in the ‘Governance and risk management’ section. Within the annual business planning cycle, strategic goals are translated into concrete objectives for the coming year. Based on the strategy, annual objectives (2024) and long-term objectives (2026) are formulated and incorporated in the business plan and the strategy card. Progress is reported periodically to the Executive Board and also discussed in the Supervisory Board. A formal risk management process, internal audit function, and compliance function are in place to ensure the timely identification and recognition of strategic risks. The Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM) and the Dutch State Supervision of Mines (SodM) oversee our core activities.
The ‘Making a sustainable impact’ section contains an explanation of the manner in which the topic 'sustainability' is substantiated. In addition, a clarification of the management approach to corporate responsibility topics, as based on ISO 26000, can be found in the CSR principles on the Enexis website.
Measuring methods and data collection
Where possible, Enexis derived the quantitative information in this report from its own systems. Internal control measures are applicable to these systems. The Corporate Control & Reporting department of Finance & Control is responsible – with the involvement of Business Control – for the collection and substantiation of the non-financial data. The GRI Index is included in the ‘Additional Information’ section.
The qualitative information was supplied and substantiated by the staff members in the organisation responsible for the various topics. The reported data was generated with the highest level of reliability; however, we are aware that some of the information could contain uncertainties that are inherent in the limitations of measuring methods and data collection. The composition of the data collected for the material topics is outlined below:
Reliable and accessible energy supply
Reports on outage time for electricity and gas, transmitted volumes and section lengths.
Safe energy grid
Reports of the Dutch State Supervision of Mines (SSM) notifications, measurements of public safety of electricity and gas, WAVE integrated permit management system reports. Reports of any data leaks, reports of any fines imposed by supervisors.
Sustainable energy supply
Reports on renewable capacity, upgraded electricity connections, removed gas connections and green gas feed-in.
Affordable energy supply
Overview of controllable costs and revenues of Enexis Netbeheer B.V. (including corporate staff departments).
Customer-oriented services
Reports from the market survey institute GfK, reports from Perspective and Avaya, results of visits to the Enexis.nl website, Nationwide Customer Satisfaction Survey from Mijnaansluiting.nl and reports on Custom Connections desired date.
Safe and healthy working environment
Reported accidents and incidents in 2023, reports on HSE and VGWM (Safety, Health, Welfare and Environment), calculation of the number of accidents with absenteeism per 1 million hours worked. Fatal commuter accidents are out of scope for the Lost Time Injury Frequency.
Employment and skilled employees
Employee surveys, workforce reports including the number of FTEs, inflow and outflow, the development budget, diversity, age categories, and absenteeism.
Efficient business operations
Reports on the number of stations equipped with Distribution Automation (light).
Influencing policy
Reports on any fines imposed by supervisors (fine register) and claim overviews.
Financially sound
Consolidated financial statements.
Sustainable organisation
Overview of measures taken and CO2 savings in 2022, results and analysis of surveys. Waste materials reports and waste processors. All waste materials are stored and processed in a manner that is suited to the type of waste, as there are specific risks attached to each type of waste. Source documentation about CO2 emissions resulting from grid and leakage losses. Circularity reports.
Materiality assessment 2023
In 2023, we validated the materiality matrix determined in 2021 as preparation for the double materiality assessment in 2024. We did this based on a media analysis, a benchmark with, for example, colleague grid operators, an analysis of topics from the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), a new European directive for reporting on matters related to people and the environment and a survey among internal and external stakeholders. These stakeholders included members of our Works Councils and our Executive Board, a group of twenty senior managers, shareholders, policymakers, energy market parties, investors, chain partners, customers, and local energy transition partners.
In the validation in 2023, we took the CSRD double materiality assessment requirements as much as possible into account for the impact materiality. We also did this by taking the outcomes of the strategic risk analysis (see the section on Corporate governance and risk management) into account. We also made use of our experience with the social annual report regarding measuring impact.
The impact materiality and the financial materiality together form the “double materiality assessment” that must be carried out as of 2024 based on the CSRD. In the impact materiality, we assess Enexis's possible positive and negative material impact on the environment and society, therefore inside-out. On the other hand, we assess the material (financial) impact of sustainability risks and opportunities on Enexis, therefore outside-in. In general, society, consumers, employees, and potential employees are mainly interested in the inside-out perspective. The outside-in perspective was always considered important by investors; however, other stakeholders are also increasingly interested in this perspective.
In 2024, we will complete the double materiality assessment. Preliminary results indicate that the topics 'employees in the value chain' and 'biodiversity and ecosystems' will be added to the material subjects next year. Currently, we do not have specific procedures and KPIs for these topics that we report in this annual report; we will work on developing them in the coming year.