In dialogue for sustainability

With a clear focus
to a focused sustainability strategy

Developing a sustainability strategy for a company of EEW’s size and importance requires effort, care and a lot of motivation. Why? Because EEW helps other companies as well as cities and local authorities to achieve their own sustainability targets. But we also want our own company to become more sustainable – according to a plan that is resilient and sets out clear targets.

 

Our materiality analysis

Our materiality analysis clearly identifies what our stakeholders expect from us. For many topics, it thus determines the direction we should and want to move in. The input came from many groups, including employees as well as stakeholders from business, politics and the local communities near our plant sites. The result of this process are twelve essential topics in five areas of action.

 

  1. Ethics and integrity
  2. Value creation
  3. Transparency and dialogue
  4. Innovation
  5. Digitalisation
  1. Working conditions and corporate culture
  2. Employee health and safety
  3. Employee development
  4. Diversity, inclusions and equal opportunities
  1. Waste (input)
  2. (Additional) input materials/resources
  3. Energy (output)
  4. climate-relevant emissions (output)
  5. (Additional) output materials/resources
  6. Biodiversity and local ecosystems
  1. Costumer relationships
  2. (Direct) supplier relationships
  3. Environmental impacts in the supply chain
  4. Social impacts in the supply chain
  1. Provision of services, creation of jobs and payment of taxes
  2. Participation in political and societal processes
  3. Partnerships in scientific establishments
  4. Involvement in the community

Our sustainability roadmap

Our sustainability roadmap guides us to the year 2030 and precisely identifies 14 targets in five areas of action. One example in the “Environment” area of action is our ambition to achieve climate neutrality by 2030. In the “Employees” area of action, one of our goals is to avoid reportable accidents.

 

Overview: our 14 sustainability targets in 5 areas of action

In detail: our 14 sustainability targets in 5 areas of action

Our ambition

It is crucial to our long-term success that customers, business partners, employees and the public have confidence in our company. Our top priority is therefore to maintain and further strengthen EEW’s trustworthiness. Employees are trained consistently to ensure that they comply with the requirements of laws, directives and the Code of Conduct. We react to any misconduct of which we become aware within a few days.

Our strategic goal by 2030

Our overall aim is to ensure that there are no significant violations of laws, directives and our Code of Conduct. We react within five working days in the event of violations.

Benchmark

Number of violations of the EEW Code of Conduct/EEW’s average reaction time in the event of violations.

Our ambition

For us, innovations are drivers of more sustainable, growth-promoting business models, products and processes. They help us to broaden our business activities and continuously improve them. We also consider projects and measures with a significant degree of innovation as a crucial key to protecting resources, the environment and climate, especially for the energy transition and strengthening the circular economy. For this reason, we invest continuously in new technologies and solutions.

Our strategic goal by 2030

Innovation-driven growth projects1 contribute at least 20 per cent to total revenue at EEW.

Benchmark

Percentage share of total revenue

Our ambiton

We want to make ever-greater use of the opportunities that digitalisation presents for the circular economy and the energy sector. To this end, we will futher expand our digital infrastructure and digital channels in business and customer relationships. All employees are expected to support and help shape the path to an increasingly agile and digital corporate culture and business activities.

Our strategic goal by 2030

We aspire to having at least 70 per cent of employees reinforcing their digital skills on a regular basis, namely at least one day per year.

Benchmark

Number of employees who have completed training tailored to their needs in one year.

Our ambition

We want to establish an open corporate culture which is shaped by appreciation and mutual respect. By offering attractive working conditions, we ensure employees
strongly identify with and are highly satisfied with EEW as an employer. This allows us to attract and retain the qualified skilled workers we need. 

Our strategic goal by 2030

Employee satisfaction will reach a rating of at least “good” on average.

Benchmark

Item “employee satisfaction”
 

Our ambition

We protect our own employees and partner companies’ staff from hazards in the workplace and in our plants. We raise their awareness of occupational health and safety and safety-conscious behaviour to avoid occupational accidents. We also promote our employees’ health through numerous offerings.

Our strategic goals by 2030

1) Our overarching objective is to avoid reportable workplace accidents involving our own employees and partner companies’ staff.
2) Through adequate working conditions and health-promoting measures, we aspire to a health rate of at least 95 per cent for our own employees.

Benchmarks

1) Number of accidents (Lost Time Injury, number of accidents resulting in time being lost (1 day and more)
2) Health rate

Our ambition

We want to ensure the quality of our services and boost our capacity for innovation through targeted vocational training, qualification and personnel development.
We encourage talented employees and utilise modern working methods. We want to promote diversity and equal opportunity, in particular at the management level.

Our strategic goals by 2030

1) We want to enhance our employees’ further training by increasing the average number of further training hours per employee to at least 40 hours per year.
2) We will increase equality of opportunity with the aim of doubling the share of women in management positions in the EEW Group (basis: 2022 reporting year).

Benchmarks

1) Number of further training days per employee and year
2) Percentage of women in management positions
 

Our ambition

We want to always offer reliable capacity for the safe treatment of non-recyclable residual waste for society, local authorities, businesses and industry. And to minimise any climate impacts, we are closing material loops and strengthening the circular economy.

Our strategic goal by 2030

We aim to offer reliable waste treatment capacity by making all thermal utilisation plants available for at least 92 per cent of the time.

Benchmark

Time availability (as a percentage)

Unsere Ambition

We make efficient use of the energy contained in waste, as a resource, and provide a reliable source of process steam for industrial plants, district heating for residential and commercial areas and electricity. As a result, our customers enjoy greater security of supply thanks to a decentralised approach to energy input, and
COemissions are avoided.

Our strategic goal 2030

We will increase the energy efficiency at our thermal waste utilisation plants through energy extraction by 15 per cent on average (baseline year 2021).

Benchmark

Annual energy efficiency (as a percentage)

Our ambition

The climate impacts of our business activity are a central issue for us. All business areas and players are actively working to avoid or lower climate-relevant emissions
and thereby reduce the footprint along our value chain.

Our strategic goal 2030

Our goal is to make our operations climate-neutral by 2030 and climate-positive by 2040. We aim to reduce our CO2 footprint by at least 20 per cent CO2eq compared with 2022 by increasing efficiency, process optimisation and greater use of renewable energies, as well as the capture, storage and industrial utilisation of CO2.

Benchmark

CO2eq figure in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol

Our ambition

We are constantly working on increasing resource recovery from thermal utilisation of waste with a view to closing material cycles and substituting natural resources.
Our focus here is not just on the quantities recovered but also on the types of resources recovered. This way, we provide an alternative to primary resources. We also ensure we consistently comply with all emission limits.

Our strategic goal by 2030

n terms of the residues created at our thermal utilisation plants, we want to increase the recycling rate from an average of 7 per cent (baseline year 2021) to at least 70 per cent.

Benchmark

Recycling rate for residues (percentage)

Our ambition

Solid customer relationships and partnerships based on trust are central to what we do and to our commercial success. That is why we all are constantly working to ensure a high level of satisfaction among both customers and partners.

Our strategic goal by 2030

The satisfaction rating from our customers and partners is at least “good” on average.

Benchmark
"Good" (grade)

Our Ambition

We strive to maintain and enhance our reputation as a reliable and expert partner with a strong interest in sustainability – with a view to being involved in social policy discourse on the circular economy and energy sector and actively contributing our expertise. To facilitate this kind of exchange, we offer dialogue platforms for our stakeholder groups.

Our strategic goal by 2030

We want to intensify exchange on social policy matters by offering and holding five events per year and site relating to topics in the circular economy and the energy
sector.

Benchmark

Number of dialogue events held

All our actions already taken and operational goals can be found in our current sustainability report.

Download

Our sustainability management

We continuously work on developing an efficient and systematic governance structure for companywide sustainability management. Sustainability management is responsible for regularly evaluating the material topics, initiating measures, pursuing our goals and measuring our progress towards reaching the goals. Sustainability management also considers feedback from our stakeholders when implementing our strategy and conducts monitoring and reporting processes.

 

Companywide responsibility for sustainability lies with the Board of Management of EEW. As the senior decision-making body, it determines the strategy and evaluates and adopts key strategic decisions and goals.

 

Since 2019, an internal steering committee has coordinated the company’s sustainability activities. This central body is made up of representatives from company departments and plant sites. The steering committee further develops the sustainability strategy, prepares decisions to be made by the Board of Management and ensures these decisions are consistently implemented within the company. Furthermore, it monitors whether the sustainability goals are being met. In an advisory role, the committee is in close contact with the Board of Management.

A new corporate sustainability department was established in 2022 to take responsibility for operational sustainability management and the companywide steering of sustainability activities. It is also responsible for public reporting and communication.

 


Our contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals

In 2016, the United Nations introduced its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to promote sustainable development in economic, social and environmental dimensions worldwide. Some of these goals are particularly important for our business operations and here we want to highlight them and our contribution to reaching these goals.

 

Sustainability report 2022

Our sustainability report for 2022 shows transparently what we have done - from the materiality analysis and our roadmap to sustainable figures, data and facts from our everyday work.

Download

In dialogue for sustainability
Download sustainability report 2022