Sustainable procurement

We are committed to the UN Global Compact, as a member, and adhere to its ten core principles on human rights, labour rights, the environment and anti-corruption.

The human rights perspective is also part of Elenia’s climate commitments. With the SBTi commitment, we contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The development of a more detailed consideration of human rights in Elenia’s operations and supply chain is an ongoing process. As part of this process, we have done Human Rights Due Diligence with gap analysis and an action plan based on this. Elenia’s operating policies have been supplemented with a human rights commitment. Accordingly, a supplementary update of the ethical principles concerning personnel and suppliers is underway. Both already include both human rights and environmental aspects.

Elenia expects all of its partners and suppliers to commit to respecting and promoting human rights, and is continuously working with its stakeholders to ensure respect for and the promotion of the human rights of different groups.

In addition, we have a certified ISO14001 environmental management system and ISO45001 occupational health and safety management system. Elenia’s network asset management is certified according to the ISO55001 standard.

Ensuring a safe and healthy working environment has been identified as a key human rights issue for Elenia’s operations. Elenia is committed to promoting the safety of its stakeholders in all of its operations. The safety of the working environment is an essential theme for Elenia’s contracting and construction partners and subcontractors in particular, whose employees often work on construction sites in challenging conditions in Elenia’s construction projects.

Elenia’s most significant human rights impacts and risks regarding the employees of its partners and subcontractors have been identified as being associated with the safety of construction sites in particular. Elenia is committed to promoting the safety of all the employees working on construction sites – both our own and those of our partners and sub-contractors – through training, appropriate safety measures and safety inspections, among other things.

Elenia is committed to promoting diversity, equality and inclusion in all its activities. We regularly investigate the experiences of our own staff with the help of a staff survey.

Elenia’s procurements consist of contracting, material, ICT and other indirect procurements. From the perspective of the realisation of human rights, the most important themes are ensuring appropriate working conditions for employees working in supply chains and preventing modern slavery and child labour.

For example, cables are purchased from material suppliers. The supply chains expand Elenia’s area of operations beyond Finland’s borders. For our part, we want to ensure that the human rights of our procurement partners’ employees are also respected and that their realisation is promoted both in Finland and in other countries.

The challenge in ensuring the sustainability of long supply chains lies in their limited visibility. We assess the human rights impacts and risks of our suppliers and supply chains, for example, through our partners’ sustainability audits. We carry out sustainability audits of our suppliers annually. As part of these, employees of the audited supplier are also interviewed by an independent party. The Code of Conduct for Elenia’s partners defines the framework conditions for the sustainability of the procurement partners’ operations, also from the perspective of human rights.  The partners commit to the Code of Conduct in connection with the conclusion of a contract.

The foundation for identifying, influencing and managing Elenia’s risks and opportunities is laid down by Elenia’s risk management policy, risk management procedure, risk register, regular measures determined by the annual risk management plan, and management systems.

The most significant sustainability-related risks associated with Elenia’s operations include the increase in extreme weather phenomena caused by climate change, and resulting disruptions to electricity networks and the distribution of electricity to customers, risks related to occupational safety and general electrical safety, environmental risks related to groundwater areas, for example, as well as risks related to the black economy and risks related to information security. We have an online training process on risk management that is mandatory for all employees.

For each risk, the risk register includes a description of the risk and its impacts, the probability of the risk and its impact should the risk materialise and, as a combination of these, a risk score. The risk register also includes information on the risk owner and the responsible persons, as well as the measures planned for managing the risk, including schedules and responsible persons.

All of the Group’s risks are reviewed twice a year in workshops whose participants include business area management and key personnel, risk managers and the management team. A report describing the Group’s main risks is prepared based on the above-mentioned activities and reviewed by the Audit and Risk Committee of the Board of Directors.

In addition, we have assessed climate risks and opportunities according to the TCFD reporting model. On the basis of the selected climate scenarios, we have assessed both physical and transition risks.

Elenia has internal guidelines and procedures, responsibilities and authorisations for handling and investigating deviations, mitigating their consequences and initiating and implementing corrective and preventive measures.

In addition, Elenia has a whistleblowing channel for all of our stakeholders to report actual and suspected misconduct.

The shortcomings identified in sustainability audits are discussed and corrective action is taken together with the suppliers concerned. Our Code of Conduct includes procedures how to terminate the supplier contract in case of misconduct.

The procurement of network components is carried out as public procurement processes in accordance with the act on public contracts in special sectors. The process uses the European Single Procurement Document (ESPD), through which the candidate confirms that the exclusion criteria are in order and that it fulfils the requirements set by the contracting entity for the suitability of the tenderer. With regard to social responsibility, child labour and other forms of human trafficking, for example, are mandatory grounds for exclusion. For example, with regard to cable procurements, we have additionally required an environmental management system as a mandatory condition for participation. The selection criteria in the qualitative scoring of cable procurements have also included the supplying plant’s lost time injury frequency (LTIF) and the publication of a sustainability report.

In addition, we assess the human social and ecological sustainability of our suppliers and supply chains through our partners’ sustainability audits, for example.