HGK ESG Academy education ‘Sustainable Energy’, Ph.D. Anita Knezović “Reporting on the sustainability of energy companies”
As part of the education organized by the ESG Academy of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce entitled ‘Sustainable energy’, held on June 7, 2024, Anita gave a lecture entitled ‘Reporting on the sustainability of energy companies’. The focus of her lecture was on the materiality assessment process according to the EFRAG guidelines and the role of stakeholders and the value chain in that process. She also linked the relationship between taxonomy (un)acceptable activities and significance♻.
The main topics and messages of the lecture were:
✅ Cooperation with internal stakeholders related to the company’s business functions and company employees, as well as with external stakeholders, users of sustainability reports and other experts, can help to assess, confirm and ensure the integrity of the results of the materiality assessment.
✅ Value chain mapping helps sustainability professionals when assessing materiality and developing a sustainability strategy to identify opportunities to improve performance because the main impacts, risks and opportunities (IRO) arising from the impact or dependence of the reporting undertaking often occur in the undertaking’s upstream and downstream value chain, not in its own business. Collecting this information from all participants of value chains is a big challenge for companies.
✅ In addition to the list of sustainability matters in ESRS 1 paragraph AR16 (Environment, Society, Governance), Anita tried to identify entity-specific disclosures for energy companies. Two stood out: energy poverty and security of supply.
✅ The most common taxonomy eligible activities for energy companies relate to energy production, energy transmission and distribution, storage, network, cogeneration, nuclear energy and gaseous fossil fuels, and especially to transport and construction activities, as well as information and communications. The environmental objectives of the Taxonomy Regulation fully reflect the environmental topics covered by the ESRS. The acceptability and compliance of the activities undertaken by the company with the technical screening criteria and DNSH criteria from the delegated regulation are also inputs for assessing the significance of impacts, risks and opportunities (IRO).