EDF Group

Review summary

EDF Group (EDF) submitted its Act4Nature commitments and its 2023 Universal Registration Document (URD) to the It’s Now for Nature campaign and met all the review criteria to be part of the campaign.

Reviewed August 2024

The EDF Group has organized an assessment of nature issues along the full value chain, including upstream and downstream from its activities.
A biodiversity risk assessment was conducted using the double materiality method on dependencies and impacts based on the ENCORE database.
EDF is both dependent on and impacts several ecosystem services, with key dependencies in water, land & soils, and raw materials, and significant environmental impacts across its value chain, from resource extraction to infrastructure end-of-life.
In their Universal Registration Document, the EDF Sustainable Development Council ranked and prioritized their main four key issues: carbon neutrality and the climate, preserving the planet’s resources, well-being and solidarity and responsible development.

EDF Group made 18 time-bound commitments for nature as part of their Act4Nature participation.
EDF Group also participated in a pilot project led by a French consultancy, which involved five French businesses in setting Science-Based Targets for Nature.
For example, EDF is committing to identify areas of improvement for the main sources of CO2 emissions and resource consumptions, concerning design and maintenance of hydroelectric production infrastructures by 2025.

EDF Group is reducing its activities’ contribution to major pressure factors and has concrete actions for the five major pressure factors identified in the 2019 IPBES report: changing use of land and sea, overexploitation of resources, climate change, pollution and invasive alien species. EDF Group has developed an action programme to limit its impact on each of these factors.
EDF Group uses the mitigation hierarchy for all projects and sites in operations for biodiversity and land management.
For example, EDF Group has a long-standing process to measure and manage pollution: EDF Group has adopted a proactive approach to checking the quality of soil, sub-soil and subterranean water on different production fleet sites (thermal and nuclear). The actions undertaken include; identifying activities likely to have an impact on the quality of soil and groundwater; setting up a piezometric monitoring network on and around the facilities; and carrying out management measures if necessary.

The CSR Strategy Committee, chaired by the Chairman and CEO and composed of Executive Directors, met four times in 2023 to review and provide strategic guidance on CSR issues, including responsible purchasing, decarbonisation, carbon contribution, climate change adaptation, and biodiversity commitments, with key conclusions reported to the Board of Directors.
The executives define the Group’s priorities on nature and the corporate social responsibility strategy committee oversee the implementation of the Group priorities on nature as well as the delivery of voluntary commitments.