Scatec follows the international principles for stakeholder engagement:
Establishing dialogue with a broad range of stakeholders, including local communities, at an early stage in a project, is critical for understanding a project’s impact and for integration of relevant considerations into the project development process. Community stakeholder engagement is not a series of isolated events, but rather a continuous process throughout the entire life of a project.
Solid interaction with our project neighbours and establishing good relations is essential. In all our operating projects, we have local community engagement and impact assessments. If dialogue with affected parties is not carried out in a timely and integrated manner, misinterpretations and concerns in local communities might arise.
To engage with local communities means to inform people about our projects and their impact, to manage expectations and to ensure local support and understanding. Regular meetings are held with local leaders and representatives in all communities where we have presence. Early dialogue and local presence are critical, and long-term engagement is equally important. Scatec engage a broad-based representation within each community by hosting Townhall meetings and stakeholder engagement forums, to ensure that the community at large is adequately represented. Topics discussed include water-related impacts, community employment, and socio-economic development programmes.
Through biweekly progress reports from project teams, the executive management receives communication on all material matters raised by our communities and other stakeholders.
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| Stakeholder group | Engagement | Key topics of discussion |
|---|---|---|
| National governments and customers | Close dialogue with national governments is a natural part of our operations and our projects often involve regular dialogue. This dialogue is usually conducted by our project development team or community liaisons. | The main concern of governments in host countries, that will often also be our customers, is local impacts and value creation, which usually includes the economic value of the projects, increased access to energy, the potential for direct and indirect job creation. |
| Local government and communities | A social impact assessment is conducted as part of the planning of all projects and based on this a plan for stakeholder engagement is developed. Scatec emphasizes continuous dialogue with local and regional communities in order to manage and meet expectations. A dedicated community liaison officer (CLO) is appointed to all our locations. | The main concern of local governments and communities is also local impacts and value creation, specifically job creation, local content and education/training. |
| Co-investors and partners | A detailed dialogue with regards to expectations is the starting point for all partnerships, and detailed in our agreements. | Co-investors and partners are concerned that we are a trustworthy business partner that applies international best practice standards such as the IFC Performance Standards and the Equator Principles in order to manage environmental and social impacts. In addition, investors are particularly concerned with our climate strategy and targets, resource use and circularity, key ESG risks within our supply chain including human and labour rights, environment and climate, corruption and conflict minerals, and corporate governance linked to executive remuneration, board composition and minority shareholder rights, are topics of interest. Investors with a specific impact investment focus are also concerned with the local value creation, and promotion of clean energy. Some of our partners are also concerned with our ability to promote Norwegian exports. |
| Financing partners | Financing partners are mainly engaged prior to providing capital, and often have very specific requirements with regards to how environmental, social and governance factors are assessed and managed. | Financing partners also focus on our business conduct and efforts to ensure that we are a trustworthy business partner. In addition, they are concerned with our climate strategy and targets, circularity, key ESG risks within our supply chain including human and labour rights, as well as environment and climate. Local financiers and financiers with an impact focus are also concerned with our local impact and value creation in terms of for example access to energy and job creation. |
| Shareholders | Existing and potential shareholders are engaged on a regular basis and often express their concerns and expectations directly with top management. | Shareholders are concerned with the ability to create value in the short and longer term and governance aspects such as anti-corruption and being a trustworthy business partner. Further, corporate governance linked to executive remuneration, board composition and minority shareholder rights, are topics of interest. |
| Employees | Our employees make up our company and who we are. | Many of our employees are proud of our social and environmental impact through promoting renewable energy and our strong sustainability, as well as ability to demonstrate local value creation. This is strongly linked to employee motivation and purpose. Employees are also concerned with own working conditions, health and safety, and opportunities to develop competencies and career path. |
| Contractors | Contractors’ concerns are heard as part of the project they are involved with and our contractors are considered as if they were our own employees when on our sites. | Contractors that work on our projects are mainly concerned with working conditions, fair wages, health and safety and opportunities to develop competencies. |
| Norwegian government and regulators | The Norwegian government is engaged through the various institutions that are interested in our efforts in Norway and in other countries. | The Norwegian government regulates our efforts and is also interested in supporting the positive impacts of our efforts in Norway and abroad. |
| Suppliers | Close supplier engagement is key to understand the ESG risks and opportunities in our supply chain. Supplier audits and other types of engagements are undertaken each year to monitor and establish a platform for good dialogue and feedback. | Our suppliers are concerned with fair pricing, working conditions, and health and safety. |
| NGO’s | NGO’s that represent local communities are engaged through each phase of the project. Environmental NGOs in Norway are engaged through collaboration with regards to promoting renewable energy. | NGOs in the local communities are concerned with our ability to create local value. Norwegian environmental NGOs support us in our efforts to promote renewable energy. |
Our grievance mechanism is targeted towards individuals, communities and companies who have feedback or concerns regarding our projects. It is a channel to present issues to the administration of the projects and is directly supervised by our global sustainability unit.
Each grievance is logged in our system, allocated to the responsible person and systematically processed according to our grievance procedures. We aim to have a response time and initiate action to resolve the grievance in a maximum of 15 working days. The mechanism is available at each local project site and in five different languages on our website: English, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese and Ukrainian. The mechanism provides a valuable platform for engaging with communities.
Localised income generation is an important part of the overall sustainability of the communities Scatec operates in. Scatec employs local labour and contractors as far as possible, whether there are legal requirements or not. This process not only provides employment opportunities, but transfers knowledge, skills and spill-over opportunities to community members. The construction phase generally generates more employment opportunities, where workers and suppliers gain valuable experience to increase their employability in the future.
Aligned with our focus on local employment, Scatec employs in country permanent positions in various stages of the value chain, across all organisational business functions including engineers, plant managers, health and safety experts, civil and mechanical workers, security personnel and community liaison officers, to mention a few. Although the availability of local labour, as well as several other factors, influence the achievement of these targets, we continue to strive towards maximising local components and capacity across projects.
Scatec plans and implements local development programmes in line with our Community Investment Procedure in the communities where we have operations. All initiatives and programmes are identified in close dialogue with local stakeholders and in consultations with local community members to ensure that the prioritised needs and significant social challenges of the communities are addressed. Our community investments focus on, but are not limited to, access to energy (e.g., local PV), capacity building, health and education. All community investments shall be fully transparent and documented, include a clear monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework and sustainable exit strategy.
