Sustainability

What can we do to combat climate change without jeopardizing the security and economic viability of electricity supply? Will RWE have access to enough skilled staff 20 years from now? How can our employees reconcile work and life better? Sustainable action requires that these questions be asked. Our answers are designed to raise the acceptance of RWE among our customers, staff and investors, while setting the stage for economic success the day after tomorrow.

Organizing sustainability management.

RWE has been building a comprehensive sustainability management system since 1998. Its proven structures were applied to the more extensive field of corporate responsibility (CR). The result is an all-encompassing network that includes all affected areas. CR measures are coordinated by the Group holding company. CR strategy implementation is handled by the CR Coordination Committee. The chairman of this body is the RWE AG Executive Board member responsible for sustainability. The management board members and managing directors in charge of sustainability at RWE Power, RWE Innogy, RWE Dea, RWE Supply & Trading, RWE Energy, RWE npower and RWE Service also sit on the Coordination Committee. They receive support from a team of CR officers from RWE AG and its subsidiaries who ensure that CR measures are implemented throughout the Group.

Our CR strategy.

To do justice to our entrepreneurial responsibility, we must constantly adapt to new requirements. This is why the development of RWE’s sustainability strategy is an ongoing process. We are currently focusing on ten fields of activity which are of utmost priority to RWE in our view and in the view of our stakeholders, including politicians, environmental organizations, employee representatives and investors. These include climate change, the limited availability of resources and the ensuing rise in the price of energy over the long term. Topics concerning the industry as a whole such as demographic change in our core markets and mounting demands placed on health and safety at work are further issues to which we accord high importance. In addition, we do charitable work wherever we have business operations. The following passage presents a selection of activities. Further information can be found in RWE’s sustainability report entitled “Our Responsibility,” which appears every two years and was last published in April 2008.