Mattias Örtenvik

Senior Project Manager, Sustainable city, E.ON Nordic
In charge of E.ON Sweden's environmental affairs since 2004. Responsible for environmental issues for the E.ON Nordic Group and its Business Units.

Mattias have a degree in Chemical engineering from the University of Linköping.To reduce his CO2 emissions, Mattias has chosen to drive in a gas powered car and to replace his old domestic appliances with new energysaving models.

Responsible for establishment of business concept concerning integrated sustainability concepts focusing on energy, transport and waste for municipalities. The assigment includes responsibilities of setting strategic direction, priorities, process and organization and how to take the concept to the market.

"As a large energy company E.ON has a great responsibility to take when it comes to mitigation of climate change. Our role is primarily to take part in shaping the development of the future energy system by making investments that raises the climate efficiency and share of renewables in the supply of energy. But who is setting the agenda and framework that ultimately decides what E.ON can contribute with?

From my perspective there are three stakeholders that hold the key to how the E.ON agenda develops – policy makers, owners/investors and customers. Policy makers has a huge role to play regarding setting up a harmonized framework of steering mechanisms to internalize the external costs of climate change so the energy industry and other industries can include these costs in investment decisions. Customers play an important role in making their demands and expectations transparent which sends a clear message of what is required of E.ON and others to be an attractive and competitive supplier.

Then we come to the owners/investors and here is where the role of the L&P industry comes into play. The owner structure of the E.ON Group is deeply fragmented and largest owner holds a share of 4 % of the stocks. Several of the largest owners of the E.ON Group are L&P companies. The capital market, including the L&P industry, has a strong and profound influence on E.ON and the measures that E.ON takes concerning climate change. The key issues of how to impact the agenda are the following:

• E.ON is very sensitive to the signals of the capital market. By addressing climate change and putting pressure on E.ON how to mitigate business risks that relates to the climate issue. That pressure was a key driver when E.ON a few years back developed a climate strategy in order to make it transparent to the owners and other stakeholders of how we intend to develop our business and generation mix in the light of climate change.

• The capital market has a strong role to play in assessing and reviewing how E.ON manages the climate issue. If signals are sent from the owners that they are not fully content our Management Board will be obliged to response. What is at stake is always the ‘license to operate’ which is based on the trust and confidence of the owners.

• The balance between long-term value creation and short-term dividends is a clear challenge when addressing the climate issue. If the capital market disregard climate concerns and is very focused on short-term return it is hard for the energy industry to make decisions that from a long-term and climate perspective are correct.

E.ON does consider climate issues in every investment with a potential impact on green-house gas emissions. Climate and environmental considerations are always put into context of two other main issues, security of supply and affordability of energy. If we are not able to balance these three factors in a good way, we will not end up with a sustainable solution.

To summarize my view, my general conclusion is that the L&P industry as an investor has a real important role to play in influencing the agenda and measures of climate change for the energy industry and other industries with large emissions of green-house gases. The influence as an investor should be exercised by putting pressure on the companies through demands of clear strategies and action plans of how they intend to contribute to a climate efficient development of the industry. The influence must also be exercised continuously in order to monitor and follow-up the strategies and action plans. If the development is unsatisfying signals must be sent the Boards of the companies so that non-delivery of promises results in consequences"