EVN AG – Annual report – 30 September 2022
Industry: utilities
About this report
Under the title “EVN Full Report”, we publish an integrated annual and sustainability report for the previous financial year which covers the period from 1 October to 30 September. Our goal for this publication is to provide equal treatment for financial and non-financial information, including the corporate governance report.
Reporting in accordance with the Austrian Sustainability and Diversity Improvement Act
EU Directive 2014/95/EU on the disclosure of non-financial and diversity-related information (NFI Guideline) was implemented in Austria through the Sustainability and Diversity Improvement Act (“Nachhaltigkeits- und Diversitätsverbesserungsgesetz”). In order to meet the related requirements, we selected the option to prepare a separate non-financial report for the 2021/22 consolidated financial statements and integrate this information in our full report. The disclosures required by the Sustainability and Diversity Improvement Act on environmental, social and employee issues, respect for human rights and the fight against corruption are therefore presented under the section “Non-financial report” and listed separately in the table of contents for easier orientation.
EU Taxonomy Regulation
EVN is required to meet the requirements defined by Article 8 of the EU Taxonomy Regulation for the first time in reporting on the 2021/22 financial year. Since the EU Taxonomy reporting requirements take effect in stages, EVN must only include an evaluation of its taxonomy-eligible economic activities for the environmental goals “climate change mitigation” and “climate change adaptation” as part of its reporting for 2021/22. However, we have decided to report voluntarily, and one year earlier than legally required, the share of turnover, capital expenditure and operating expenditure generated by our taxonomy-aligned economic activities to give our stakeholders, in particular investors, analysts and lenders, a comprehensive overview of our efforts in this area.
- For information on the EU Taxonomy Regulation, see page 39ff
Applied standards and guidelines
This full report meets the high standards of the UN Global Compact and presents our progress in the related areas. The following corporate departments were responsible for the collection and calculation of data in accordance with national and international standards and with the guidelines for financial and sustainability reporting: accounting, controlling and human resources management as well as the staff department for innovation, sustainability and environmental protection. The consolidated financial statements were prepared in accordance with § 245a of the Austrian Commercial Code based on the requirements of the IFRS issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the interpretations of the International Financial Reporting Interpretations Committee (IFRIC) which required mandatory application as of the balance sheet date and had been adopted by the European Union.
Non-financial reporting for the 2021/22 financial year is based on the applicable standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), option “core”, and also includes additional performance indicators. The reported GRI indicators are summarised in the GRI content index to provide an overview of the Subject matter.
- For information on the GRI content index, see page 275ff
Reporting principles and structure
At EVN, we attach great importance to giving equal treatment to the interests and concerns of our various stakeholders. The selection of the non-financial reporting content is based on its relevance for sustainability and our goal to achieve a balanced and complete presentation of the most important current issues in line with the following principles:
- Inclusion of stakeholders:
The reporting content is based on legal requirements and the information needs of our stakeholders, which were last identified through a stakeholder survey in 2021. This structured survey process takes place every three years.
- Materiality: EVN’s most important activity and subject areas are defined by the EVN materiality matrix based on the results of the stakeholder survey and are reflected in the structure for this full report. The classification by area of activity is intended to give equal treatment to the diverse and varied information needs of EVN’s target groups. In agreement with the GRI reporting standards, information of low importance is not provided in order to maximise relevance and transparency by concentrating on the most significant issues.
- Completeness: This reporting meets applicable legal requirements as well as the applied GRI standards.
- For information on EVN’s materiality matrix, see page 16f
External verification
The limited assurance audit for the 2021/22 financial year was conducted by BDO Austria GmbH Wirtschaftsund Steuerberatungsgesellschaft and was performed in agreement with the requirements of the Austrian Sustainability and Diversity Improvement Act, respectively with § 267a of the Austrian Commercial Code and GRI standards 2016 option “core” as well as Article 8 of the EU Taxonomy Regulation (2020/852) in connection with Article 10 para. 2 and para. 4 of the delegated regulation of the European Commission (2021/2178) and in connection with Article 9 letter a and b of the EU Taxonomy Regulation (2020/852).
- The auditors‘ report can be found on page 269ff
- For the independent assurance report on the consolidated non-financial report, see page 129ff
Additional information
We prepared this full report and verified the data with the greatest possible diligence. Nevertheless, rounding, typesetting and/or printing errors cannot be excluded. The use of automatic data processing equipment can lead to rounding differences in the addition of rounded amounts and percentage rates. This full report also contains forward-looking statements, estimates and assumptions which are based on the information available to us up to the editorial deadline. Such statements are typically connected with terms such as “expect”, “estimate”, “plan”, “anticipate” etc. We would like to point out that actual circumstances – and, in turn, the company’s performance and results – may differ from the expectations and forward-looking statements contained in this report for a variety of reasons.
We use the following signs in this report:
EVN is committed to equal treatment in references to all genders in its internal and external publications, i. e. also in this full report.
This full report is available in German and English. In case of doubt, the German version takes precedence.
The editorial deadline for this report was 23 November 2022.
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