Talking Energy Environment

• Our Responsibilities
• The Issues
• 2010 Performance
• 2009 Performance
• 2008 Performance
• How we're doing
• Act responsibly
• Customers
• Reliable energy
• Low carbon society
• Environment
• Managing impact
• Resource use
• Emissions
• Waste
• Land and biodiversity
• Our People
• Assurance Statement
• GRI Index
• What We're Doing
• How we do business

What we did in 2008

Environment

Related case studies

• Extending the life of our assets

• Protecting biodiversity

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• Overview
• Performance

We recognise that our activities have an impact on the environment. We aim to minimise the impact of our business operations, reducing our emissions and waste.

Harnessing renewable energy isn’t the only way we’re reducing our impact. For us it’s also about minimising all our impacts on the environment and we’re working across our businesses to reduce waste and the resource we use throughout our business operations.

We’re keen to ensure all E.ON colleagues have the support they need to reduce their impact on the environment too. Our volunteer Environmental Champions help fellow team mates across our business to identify ways to reduce and better manage their environmental impact. We have Green Travel policies which actively encourage lower carbon behaviour such as car sharing and video conferencing.

We’re also finding ways to help our businesses run more efficiently than ever before, through constant improvements to operations in all business areas including generation, distribution and retail.

We’re continually working to reduce other emissions too such as nitrogen oxide (NOx) and sulphur oxide (SOx) emissions. These emissions are produced during combustion, especially combustion at high temperatures, and contribute to a number of environmental impacts, including the greenhouse effect, local air pollution and acid rain.

35%

reduction in NOx emissions compared to 2007

28.5%

reduction in SOx emissions compared to 2007

16%

reduction for our office waste to landfill

29MWh

generated from our food waste

For us it’s about minimising all our impacts on the environment and we’re working across our businesses to reduce waste and the resource we use throughout our operations

In 2008, we reduced SOx by 28.5%, NOx by 35.0% and particulate by 10%.

We reduced our office waste to landfill by 16% and now aiming for zero waste to landfill in our Retail Business.

We also started to recycle food waste from our offices to produce bio-diesel. So far we have generated 29MWh from our waste food.

On a less positive note, we haven’t achieved our target of a 10% reduction in business miles. The restructure of some core functions in the E.ON Group has impacted on air travel between the UK and Germany resulting of 22% increased.

Each flight has associated road miles, hotel stays and taxi journeys, all of which contribute towards a rise in emissions.

However, reducing our emissions from business travel remains a key priority and we’ve introduced initiatives throughout 2008 to provide our colleagues with real alternatives to reduce their business travel. Our Green Travel Plan, car sharing and electronic meeting solutions have enjoyed huge success in making a real contribution in reducing our non-operational carbon footprint.

Reviewed 2009 Information on this page has been assured by The ReAssurance Network