Making a sustainable impact

Overview most important indicators, material topics and dilemmas

Enexis not only supports the transition to a sustainable energy supply, we are also increasing the sustainability of the processes within our organisation. Climate and circularity are our most important focus points.

We assume our responsibility by focusing on the areas where we can really make a difference: reducing our CO₂ emissions and increasing our circularity. With this, we are also contributing to SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production) and SDG 13 (climate action).

Reduction CO₂ emissions

Enexis assumes responsibility for its CO₂ emissions and makes a conscious choice to be and remain CO₂ neutral. We do green purchasing where possible. We compensate the remaining share of our footprint with investments in sound CO₂-reducing projects, that also contribute to the sustainable development of local communities (Gold Standard).

Our CO₂ footprint is the basis for assuming our responsibility for reducing our CO₂ emissions. We determine our CO₂ footprint annually (see visual). Our CO₂ emissions are divided into three segments:

• Scope 1: direct emissions

• Scope 2: indirect emissions electricity

• Scope 3: other indirect emissions

Scope 1: Direct emissions

Reducing gas leakage losses

When we zoom in on our direct emissions, we see that gas leakage losses decreased again by 1% compared to the previous year. This is due to replacement of grey cast iron and asbestos cement pipelines. We have been replacing these brittle pipelines since 2009. We do this to increase public safety and it has the advantage that it reduces methane leakages. The planned replacement of asbestos cement pipelines has already been completed. We are on track with the replacement of grey cast iron pipelines. We replaced 64 kilometres of pipelines in 2023 (our target was 83 kilometres). We will replace the rest of the pipelines as we go along, for example, when we are carrying out projects for the sustainable development of certain areas.

UN programme extended Enexis's Gold Standard status

For the reduction of methane emissions, we were granted the Gold Standard status again in 2021 from the Oil & Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP) 2.0, a programme within the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). As the only regional grid operator, we received the Gold Standard status for the third year in a row. In short, the Gold Standard goes to organisations who set themselves concrete targets for the reduction of methane emissions and achieve these targets.

OGMP awarded us the Gold Standard status for our replacement programme for grey cast iron gas pipelines and gas connection pipelines. From the OGMP 2.0 report: ‘In the Netherlands, DSOs Coteq, Enexis, Liander, NV RENDO, Stedin, and Westland Infra worked together to effectively co-create implementation plans. They were also able to carry out and share results to set measurement-based emission factors for the different sources of methane emissions at national level.’

Mobility: cars and company cars

Our footprint in connection with leased cars and company cars in scope 1(excluding electric mobility) increased by 9% compared to last year. This increase is in line with the increase in the number of employees.

Scope 2: Indirect emissions electricity

New pipelines limit distribution losses

The largest share of our gross emissions in scope 2 consists of electricity grid losses. Resistance and heating up lead to energy loss during the transmission of electricity. This is referred to as 'technical distribution losses'. Furthermore, there are also ‘administrative distribution losses’: losses due to energy fraud, such as the illegal use of energy, and administrative errors, for example, when measuring energy consumption.

Our electricity grid loss has increased by 10% to 1,301 gigawatt hours (2022: 1,188 gigawatt hours). This increase is the result of the changed methodology for measuring consumption profiles since April 2023 (see the chapter Working on increasing grid capacity - Better allocation of energy consumption), more consumption and increased transportation of returned electricity.

We remain emission neutral

Enexis wants to remain emission neutral. We purchase all our electricity green and aim to thus realise our fair share in the Dutch climate goals. Concretely, this means that we purchase more green electricity in the Netherlands every year. in total 40% in 2023, increasing up to 55% in 2030.

Emissions based on the physical energy mix (location-based method) are decreasing due to the growth of renewable production in the energy mix of energy suppliers. Market-based, we purchase everything green so that our emissions are nil, as is also the case for the energy consumption of our buildings.

Mobility: electric leased cars and company cars

The energy consumption of our electric leased cars and company cars increased slightly due to the growth of the company; however, CO₂ emissions decreased by 4% due to a substantial decrease of the emission factor in 2023 (10%).

Scope 3: Other indirect emissions

Despite an overall increase in the number of purchased electricity assets, the CO₂ footprint of purchased assets of Enexis decreased by approximately 2%. The low and medium voltage cables together account for about 80% of the total carbon footprint. In 2023 there has been be a decrease in the purchased quantity of cables compared to a high purchasing level in 2022. At the same time, the result of the previous tender for project cables became visible in 2023 in which the climate impact (CO₂ and circularity), through the use of the Asset Tool (developed jointly with Stedin and Liander) in the tender has been taken into account. The CO₂ decrease is further reinforced by fewer purchased gas assets.

CO₂ emissions are taken into account in purchasing and investing

Enexis applies a CO₂ valuation when taking purchasing or investment decisions. This is a method to measure greenhouse gas emissions caused by a purchase or investment, expressed in tons of CO₂. By placing a price tag on these emissions, we make these emissions part of the price. As a result, environmentally unfriendly investments are more expensive and therefore less attractive. In this manner, we opt for more sustainable alternatives and we stimulate our suppliers to increase their sustainability. We used a CO₂ price of € 100 per ton of CO₂ in 2022. We increased this price in 2023 to € 150.

Mobility: commuter traffic and business trips

Our footprint in connection with mobility in scope 3 increased strongly compared to 2022 (42%). Besides the growth of our workforce, this increase is also due to more travel days per employee. 

CO₂ intensity

To make our environmental impact more comparable, we also calculated our market-based CO₂ intensity in addition to our CO₂ footprint. Our CO₂ emissions in scope 1 and 2 were set off against the revenue figures in millions of USD. The revenue figures were converted into US dollars using the average exchange rate over the years in question.  The CO₂ intensity amounted to 30 tons of CO₂ per million USD in 2030 (2022: 36, 2021: 32). The decrease is due to an increase in revenue while CO₂ emissions remained at the same level.

Increasing circularity

To increase our circularity, we are focusing on the four component categories with the largest environmental impact: low- and mid-voltage cables, gas pipelines, and distribution transformers. Our circularity target for 2023 was 10% of the whole inflow cycle, consumption and reuse up to the outflow of grid components. The result was 20% in 2023.

In order to achieve our circularity goals, we are focusing on our top 10 circularity measures.

Inflow: circularity increased

We want 18% of our electricity cables, gas pipelines, and transformers to consist of recycled materials in 2026 and 50% in 2030. This means that suppliers of our grid components must reduce the use of primary raw materials per unit of production by 50% in 2030 in comparison to the reference year 2014. This long-term target is in line with the Raw Materials Agreement of the Dutch government. We set our targets per unit of production as the energy transition requires an upgrading of the grid and an increase in the use of materials. By setting targets per unit of production, we are better able to measure progress.

To achieve our circularity targets, the requirements that we set for the purchasing of components play a large role. We can influence our results with our tenders. We prepared a very large European tender for low- and mid-voltage cables in 2023. The degree of circularity and the CO₂ footprint set at 16% weighed unprecedentedly high in the awarding of the tender. This gives our suppliers the opportunity to benefit from sustainability and provide us with a real sustainable cable.

The circularity of our inflow of project cables and distribution transformers was 7.1% in 2023. With this, we have achieved our target of 7%.

Through flow: reuse increased

We try to reuse components as much as possible. In these times of material shortages, this is an important element in our daily work. With the reuse of components, we avoided about € 17 million in purchasing value and about 2,000 tons of CO₂ emissions in 2023 compared to 2022.

Outflow: recycling percentage rose

Our work unavoidably produces waste. We regard it as our responsibility to collect, separate, and process this waste as well as possible. At present, we already separate our waste into 98 flows in our new and more safely designed waste processing unit, which is then processed. The recycling target for 2023 was 95%, the result at 93% was slightly lower. We incinerated and dumped more waste than in 2022.

We experienced some problems with the processing of asbestos-containing steel. Purified Metal Company, the only waste processor in Europe that melts down asbestos-containing steel at high temperatures into clean steel, was unfortunately declared bankrupt. We started with a pilot in the fourth quarter of 2023 in which we collect asbestos-containing steel and waste processor Remondis then purifies it. The asbestos is separated from the steel so that a clean metal flow remains. This pilot will run until the first quarter of 2024.