Protecting the Environment

The Group's Purpose, enshrined in its bylaws, places the environment at the heart of its concerns, based on the two components of the transition to a carbon-neutral economy and a positive impact on the Planet. The Group's environmental policy is part of its broader corporate social responsibility policy, and has been drawn up in coherence with the other Group policies with which it interacts: health and safety, human resources, ethics, risks, purchasing, industrial safety, etc.

The environment is a major challenge for ENGIE and a key asset for creating value with its stakeholders. Its preservation, at the very least, through respect for the "Avoid/Reduce/Compensate" sequence, and whenever possible its improvement through the notion of "Positive Balance", enable us to maintain the availability and richness of the natural resources that the Group uses for its activities and makes available to its customers. 

The Group also adheres to the major international principles in favor of preserving the environment, and displays its support for the UN Global Compact, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the OECD Guiding Principles and the Paris Climate Agreement.

Sommaire

• Committing to the Climate
• Optimising Water management
• Protecting Biodiversity
• Improving Air quality and developing Green mobility
• Become part of a circular economy and reduce waste 
• Protecting the Forests
• Reducing our methane emissions 
• Reducing the carbon footprint of our working practices 
• Making our power grids more reliable
  • Lengths considered (per country in kms)
  • Transmission losses
  • Line Availability
• Reducing soil pollution
• Managing the use of critical materials and rare-earth elements
• ENGIE and the Sustainable Energy Transition label

Committing to the Climate

Certain that we are facing a climate emergency and fully aware of the importance of the role that we play, our Group has set itself the goal of contributing to a transition to a carbon-neutral world by considering the control of its greenhouse gas emissions as a major challenge. Since 2015, we have been firmly committed to aligning ourselves with the Paris Agreement. We are drastically reducing emissions related to our industrial activities, and we obtained in 2020, the SBTi “2°C” certification, followed by the SBTi “well-below 2°C” certification in February 2023, for our 2030 objectives, a key step towards the Group’s net zero emission by 2045. 

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Optimising Water management

Due to the nature of its industrial processes, ENGIE pays particular attention to water management in its energy production and wastewater treatment processes. Since water is an essential resource for life, the availability and quality of water resources are two key priorities for the planet. The droughts of recent years have only reinforced the need for action. ENGIE works on these issues by implementing operational measures and by lending ideas to international discussions on this issue including the OECD and the CEO Water Mandate.

The oceans, key elements in carbon capture, are also threatened by human activity. ENGIE's activities interact with this resource directly, through the cooling of certain power plants or the heating of liquefied gas, desalination or offshore wind power, and indirectly, through hydraulic structures on rivers, greenhouse gas emissions, atmospheric discharges or waste produced.

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Protecting Biodiversity

Like every other aspect of human life, ENGIE Group activities are in constant interaction with biodiversity. Protecting biodiversity is a priority for the Group's businesses and projects.

The protection of biodiversity is a component of the Group’s development, along with the management of its risks and opportunities in terms of regulation and reputation. Poor consideration or anticipation of regulatory changes ever stronger or stakeholder expectations may cause delays or stoppages in our business, and therefore significant financial costs. The protection of biodiversity is fully involved in environmental and social responsibility of the Group and constitutes a strong challenge to the territorial base of its activity.

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Improving Air quality and developing Green mobility

In addition to CO2, other emissions are produced by the combustion of fossil or renewable energies during the industrial processes involved in energy production. Depending on their concentration in the air, nitrogen oxide (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and particulate matters (PM) can have a serious impact on the environment and human health. ENGIE is therefore developing actions to control these atmospheric pollutants at its facilities, as well as green mobility plans, to help protect cities and regions.

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Become part of a circular economy and reduce waste 

The Group considers the integration of its activities into a more circular economy as an essential factor of its economic and environmental performance. Actions are carried out at several levels: reuse of organic waste (production of biomethane), management of the endof-life of materials (wind turbines, solar panels, etc.), or sustainable use of resources. The circular economy often leads to a reduction in production costs, an increase in added value and higher consumer loyalty.

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Protecting the Forests

For several decades, and due to overexploitation of forest products and increasing needs for agricultural development, the world's forest cover has been constantly decreasing. Yet forests are essential for stabilizing the climate by naturally absorbing carbon dioxide (about one third of the CO2 emitted by the burning of fossil fuels is absorbed by forests each year), and for the range of ecosystem services they provide (food, water, fuel, medicines, traditional crops, livelihoods, etc.), which help regulate ecosystems and protect biodiversity.

In order to reduce its environmental footprint and to reconcile industrial activities with a positive impact on the planet, ENGIE has adopted a Forest Policy in 2021 that reflects the Group's commitments in terms of deforestation and the use of forest biomass.

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Reducing our methane emissions 

The Group is targeting a reduction in methane emissions from its gas infrastructures (transport, distribution, storage and LNG terminals) linked to venting (planned and unplanned), flaring and fugitive emissions. In 2022, the Group's methane emissions will represent 1.3 Mt CO2 eq.

In 2020, the Group's French subsidiaries (GrDF, GRTGaz, Elengy and Storengy) joined the Oil & Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP) 2.0, an initiative managed by the United Nations Environment Program, which aims to share an internationally recognized reporting framework and minimize associated methane emissions. As such, these operators have been classified in 2022 at the highest level of commitment, namely the "gold standard". 

Today, ENGIE is going one step further and has set itself the target of reducing methane emissions from its consolidated gas infrastructures worldwide by 30% between 2017 and 2030.

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Reducing the carbon footprint of our working practices 

ENGIE has also set itself a Net Zero Carbon objective for its working practices by 2030.

Business travel, IT tools and usage, office-related CO2 emissions, commuting, company and company vehicles, are all subject to a decarbonization trajectory updated and reported annually by the Group's operating entities.

Indeed, since 2019, each of the Group's operating entities must report its emissions and draw up annual action plans to ensure that our trajectory is achieved. At the same time, Group policies are defined and applied in all entities. These were supplemented in autumn 2022 by a global energy sobriety plan. 

In terms of commitments : 

• reduce the energy consumption of its tertiary buildings by 35% by 2030 (-15% for winter 2022), 
• encourage 6% of employees to give up their car for the journey to work, 
• reduce the carbon footprint of the company car fleet by 5% by encouraging eco-driving.

Making our power grids more reliable

• ENGIE operates power transmission networks in Brazil, Peru and Chile. These networks have loss rates and unavailability rates measured by a SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index) indicator.

Lengths considered (per country in kms)

Legend: TL = Transmission Lines

Length considered in the calculations:

• Gralha Azul: All TL’s operated by Engie except TL Irati Norte – Ponta Grossa
• Novo Estado: All TL’s operated by Engie except TL Serra Pelada – Xingu C1 and C2
• Some transmission lines operated by ENGIE (like those in Peru) are only used to carry out energy from our generation facilities and are thus considered as part of these assets. So their lengths, availability, reliability performance and transmission losses rates are not computed here. 

Transmission losses

Legend: TL = Transmission Lines

Remarks:

• TEN is the interconnection system between the former SING (Norte Grande Interconnected System) and the SIC (Central Interconnected System) networks in Chile. It is operated both ways: when the current flow is inverted, the electrical power goes to zero. In this range, the measurement equipment is less reliable which explains the high value for the transmission losses.
• Losses of TL in Peru are not computed anymore because directly connected to thermal power plants (their losses correspond to the auxiliary power supplied from the system).
• Here is the formula used to calculate the transmission losses :

Line Availability

Legend: TL = Transmission Lines

Remark: Here is the formula used to calculate the availability of the transmission lines :

Tandis que :

In 2022, this availability rate resulted in 1 hour and 45 minutes of unavailability over the year.

Reducing soil pollution

Soil and groundwater protection are an integral part of the Group's environmental policy. 

The environmental consequences of soil pollution, and the costs of subsequent remediation measures, can be considerable. It is therefore important to prevent this risk. By 2022, 1.332 billion euros had been invested in site remediation, the dismantling of non-nuclear facilities and the scheduled disposal of products. 

In this area, ENGIE complies with the regulations of each country in which the Group operates. In Belgium, for example, as part of a study into soil pollution at several power plant sites, the risks were assessed in collaboration with the relevant environmental authorities, and a remediation project was put in place. 

ENGIE owns several former gas plants and sites that may be affected by hydrocarbons, heavy metals and other volatile substances affecting health. They must therefore be restored before being reused. And for all the Group's sites, soil and groundwater monitoring is carried out, in accordance with operating permits, to prevent possible pollution. 

Gas pipelines are ENGIE's main land use. As they are buried, they can generate land-use conflicts. In France, GRTgaz therefore draws up amicable easement agreements with all the owners of the land it crosses, following consultation phases.

Finally, for the development of new sites for the production of renewable wind and photovoltaic energy, the choice of site is crucial, and the arable nature of the land is an essential factor taken into account well upstream of the project. 

• In France, calls for bids for photovoltaic power plants are issued under the aegis of the Commission de Régulation de l'Énergie, and sites on arable land are often ruled out. 
• For wind farms, development on arable land is possible if a state of play is carried out before and after the project by an independent agricultural expert, in order to define the fair compensation to be paid to landowners or farmers for the use of this land.

Managing the use of critical materials and rare-earth elements

Critical materials are raw materials used in certain equipment purchased by ENGIE to produce decarbonized electricity, which present supply risks of an economic, geopolitical, environmental or human rights nature. 

Certain so-called rare earths are among these critical materials since they have become indispensable for certain low-carbon technologies (electric batteries, magnets for certain wind turbines, electrolyzers for hydrogen production, etc.) due to their exceptional properties: high thermal stability, high electrical conductivity and strong magnetism. 

At this stage, ENGIE considers that geostrategic, human rights and environmental risks are the main issues to be addressed around these rare earths and intends to deepen its analysis of the negative impacts of their extraction and their reusability potential with the help of experts or within the framework of partnerships with suppliers of equipment using these materials.

In 2022, ENGIE has drawn up a global internal action plan for critical raw materials, known as the CRM plan (for Critical Raw Materials), to anticipate future tensions and mitigate the risks associated with critical materials over the period to 2030. The CRM action plan includes measures linked to supply chain management, industrial partnerships, lobbying and the scaling-up of circular economy models.

The focus is on improving supply chain traceability. In addition, ENGIE Research is developing a tool that should be operational by 2024 and will provide a comprehensive overview of the specific risks associated with each key material.

End-of-life management and secondary sourcing offer enormous potential for mitigating the risk of supply chain bottlenecks, reducing our dependencies and limiting the environmental impact of our fleets. That's why ENGIE is leveraging its expertise in component dismantling/reuse/recycling to pave the way for a circular approach to renewable energies, in close collaboration with our industrial partners.

ENGIE and the Sustainable Energy Transition label

The energy sector is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, which is why ENGIE is taking action to preserve the planet, by reducing its emissions and protecting biodiversity. Developing renewable energies, creating a Sustainable Energy Transition label, supporting the decarbonization initiatives of our customers in all sectors, increasing the use of sustainable funding with green bonds, investing in innovative technologies, such as synthetic fuels, etc.