EVN Climate Initiative
Climate change and its impacts on humans and ecosystems are among the greatest challenges of our time. Scientific studies and forecasts on species preservation, extreme weather events, and human health underscore the urgency of preventing each one-tenth of a degree of global warming and reducing CO2e emissions. The low CO2e-and CO2e-free generation of energy is an important lever to meet the politically defined climate goals set by the 1.5°C target in the Paris Agreement. As an energy provider, we can contribute to meeting these goals with our sustainability oriented management.
Climate change mitigation, energy efficiency and the circumspect use of natural resources have been deeply anchored in the EVN Group for many years. EVN‘s Strategy 2030 is also significantly influenced by the current political and social discourse surrounding the subject of climate change mitigation and the related goals. The strategy reflects our commitment to make an active contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the containment of global warming. It represents the basis for our ambitious and realistic goals and actions taken to reduce our emissions for the successful decarbonisation of our company and our value chain.
Investments in the energy future
The expansion of our renewable generation capacity, above all for wind power and photovoltaics, is a main element of the EVN Climate Initiative. We have been working consistently and successfully on the transformation of our generation portfolio for many years and investing extensively in the expansion of our renewable generation capacity.
Various projects increased our installed renewable generation capacity by a total of 150 MW over the last three financial years alone. As of 30 September 2024, our installed renewable capacity totalled 925 MW.
The continuous expansion of our renewable generation portfolio will proceed during the coming years. The concrete projects in our target path will lead to the following expansion of our installed capacities:
Reduction targets for emissions
EVN joined the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) in summer 2021. This initiative was founded and is led by the four international organisations Carbon Disclosure Project, UN Global Compact, World Resources Institute und World Wide Fund for Nature. Together with the participating companies, the SBTi defines scientific goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement. Verification by SBTi increases credibility, measurability and comparability of the pursued targets and hence raises international acceptance.
In agreement with our integrated business model and the differences between our individual business areas, we set five reduction targets that will lead to a 60% reduction of our emissions until 2034. The two intensity goals follow the sector-based approach defined by the SBTi for electricity producers.
These CO2e emission reduction goals agreed with and verified by SBTi are based on the international climate goal established in Paris, which calls for limiting global warming to substantially below 2°C.
We worked intensively to revise and refine our CO2e reduction goals in 2023/24 to align them with the 1.5°C goal set by the Paris Agreement. Existing measures were reviewed and intensified where possible, and new goals were set. This formed the basis for the development of an initial transition plan with concrete measures for the entire EVN Group. Our revised CO2e-emission reduction goals will be filed with SBTi in 2024/25 for external, scientific evaluation und validation. The first step was taken in November 2024 with the submission of our commitment letter to SBTi.
For further information on the EVN Initial 1.5°C transition plan please see here.
Innovations
Research and development activities to support the sustainable reduction of CO2e emissions are an important building block of our efforts to actively contribute to the attainment of the Paris climate goals. They also support the strategic evolution of our business model. In this sense, all our research and development activities are designed to support the realisation of the goals set by the EVN Climate Initiative. We want to support climate change mitigation and the gradual system transformation towards climate-neutral energy generation and, at the same time, safeguard supply security. This takes place within the framework of numerous innovative research and development projects – for example the Batterie STABIL battery storage project and the cross-regional research initiative Green Energy Lab which is supported by provincial energy providers and energy agencies.