2018 Sustainable Business Report

Our framework for being a sustainable and responsible energy business

The Better Plan is an integral part of EDF’s 2030 vision – to be the efficient, responsible electricity company, and champion of low-carbon growth.

Our society depends on energy to live, work, develop and grow. Our customers depend on us to produce enough affordable energy– and to do it in a sustainable way. And we depend on our people to help us take on new challenges and fulfil our ambitions.

We want to deliver Better Lives, Better Experience and Better Energy for all of society.

The Better Plan will help us to drive innovation, achieve profitable business growth, save costs and manage the risks of doing business in an increasingly volatile world – and, importantly, that we do all these things in a sustainable and a responsible way.

BETTER LIVES

We will innovate to transform people’s lives with skills and job opportunities.

Health and safety
Future skills
Building stronger communities

BETTER EXPERIENCE

We will innovate to help all customers manage energy better.

Customer service
Supporting vulnerable customers
Energy efficiency solutions

BETTER ENERGY

We will innovate to lead the UK’s transition to safe, low-carbon energy:

Nuclear power
Decarbonising our electricity
Environmental impact

Creating The Better Plan

To achieve long-term success as a sustainable and responsible business, we aim to understand the most material issues affecting our company.

By addressing those issues, we can focus our resources, stakeholder engagement and reporting activities.

We have developed a process for identifying and prioritising our sustainability activity. We determine these using a range of inputs, including stakeholder discussions and research. These inputs are analysed by our Sustainable Business and Strategy teams, with support from the relevant Business Units.

We then prioritise these against a set of criteria that measure the level of stakeholder concern on an issue. We consider this alongside the potential that issue has to impact us as a business, and our ability to influence this impact. Each is then categorised as ‘significant’ or ‘non-significant’.

The Process

The starting point was to firmly align with the values and goals of our parent company, EDF Group, who have set strategic vision to 2030 to be the efficient, responsible electricity company, champion of low-carbon growth.

Secondly the material and future issues affecting our business were reviewed and mapped against stakeholder interests. We identified three strategic goals where we make an important contribution to society and economy through: Better Lives, Better Experience and Better Energy and underpinned these with the creation of 16 goals and targets in our Better Energy Ambitions to measure innovation and progress to 2030.

We developed a process for identifying and prioritising issues involving stakeholder analysis and feedback. These were prioritised through an evaluation of criteria relating to the measure of the level of stakeholder concern against our impact as a business and our ability to influence change. This resulted in a classification of ‘significant’ or ‘non-significant’ impact categories.

STAGE 1
Internally, we benchmarked ourselves against various companies with notable sustainability programmes and aspirations. We also benchmarked ourselves against our direct competitors.
STAGE 2
We spoke to both internal and external stakeholders to assess our position in regards to sustainable and responsible business. We also sought their feedback on what they believed were the most significant issues for their respective stakeholders groups.
STAGE 3
We commissioned Deloitte to facilitate an internal assessment to determine material issues for our business. This took the form of a questionnaire followed up with a workshop.
STAGE 4
In collaboration with teams throughout the business, we developed a road map to understand what future challenges and risks the energy industry is likely to face between now and 2030.

EDF Group’s CAP 2030 strategy

EDF Group’s CAP 2030 strategy was developed alongside the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which attained a benchmark of excellence. We completed an exercise to assess our alignment with the strategy.
Key findings from the research concluded that:

Our Better Energy Ambitions cover the right issues. However, stakeholder feedback revealed that there is too much detail: our plans are not coming across simply and clearly enough.
External stakeholders believed that we could show more ambition, given the realities we face and the leadership shown by other companies.
We had an opportunity to outline how our business contributes to addressing our material issues.

Following this research and its conclusions, our Executive Team sponsored the update of our Better Energy Ambitions and development of three strategic goals to address our most material issues.

This process has made our sustainable business plan broader and more forward-looking, with a clear direction on the areas where we believe we can have the greatest impact.

The Better Plan 2030 alignment

Aligning our Better Plan with the EDF 2030 Strategic Vision, Corporate Social Responsibility Goals and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Our Better Plan includes six core Better Energy Ambitions for improving our social, economic and environmental performance. They are closely linked to both EDF Group’s Corporate Responsibility (CSR) Goals and, in turn, the United Nations’ long term vision for sustainable development – the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Archived sustainability reports

See our reports for previous years:

2016 The Better Plan Progress report
2015 Sustainability Performance report
2014 Sustainability Performance report
2013 Sustainability Performance report
2012 Sustainability Performance report
2011 Sustainability Performance report
2011 Progress Report - Our Sustainability Commitments
2010 Sustainability Performance report
2009 Sustainability Performance report
2008 Sustainability Performance report
2007 Sustainability Performance report

Our Better Energy Ambitions

Our six Better Energy Ambitions set out our short, medium and long-term goals and targets for improving our social, economic and environmental performance.

By meeting these ambitions, we will have created Better Lives, Better Experience and Better Energy - The Better Plan - in a sustainable and responsible way.