General disclosures

The Sustainability Report generally refers to the entire Alpiq Group and includes the fully consolidated companies for all disclosures. Any reporting that deviates from this in exceptional cases is marked at the respective point and explained accordingly.

The scope of consolidation of Alpiq Holding Ltd. can be found in Note 5.2 (Significant Group Companies and Shareholdings) of the 2021 consolidated (annual) financial statements of Alpiq Holding Ltd.

Determining the content of the report and the delimitation of topics was carried out in accordance with the materiality matrix in GRI 102-47: List of material topics.

In 2020, a team of experts from the whole Alpiq Group defined a list of the material topics in workshops. These topics reflect significant economic, environmental and social impacts of Alpiq’s business activities and reflect Alpiq’s purpose and strategy. In addition, the topics substantially influence the assessments and decisions of the relevant stakeholders.

From this list, topics were ultimately selected that were considered to be of major importance for Alpiq as well as for its stakeholders. The following content is based on these material topics. The ‘Materiality Matrix’ chart below shows the assessment (‘moderate’ or ‘major’) of the material topics based on their significance for Alpiq and their influence on the assessments and decisions of stakeholders. Material topics with a ‘major significance’ in both dimensions are considered relevant for reporting purposes and are outlined in blue in the following chart.

For this Sustainability Report, the material topics were reviewed and confirmed. In addition, they were supplemented by the two topics ‘security of supply’ and ‘biodiversity’ (see GRI 102-49). In this reporting year, the material topics were linked for the first time to the five SDGs selected by Alpiq (see "Introduction").

GRI specifies the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP) as the accounting methodology for emissions. It distinguishes between the following emission categories, so-called scopes, along the value chain:

• Scope 1: All direct emissions from Alpiq operations (own assets)
• Scope 2: The indirect emissions of energy provision generated outside of Alpiq for Alpiq operations, e.g. electricity, district heating.
• Scope 3: Emission from upstream and downstream activities, divided into 15 categories.

In order to cover Scopes 1 and 2 more fully in this reporting year, Alpiq collected and evaluated additional data. For complete coverage of the two scopes, areas had to be accounted for again. For Scope 1, for example, the vehicle fleet owned by Alpiq and for Scope 2, for example, the electricity consumption of rented properties as well as electric vehicles owned by Alpiq. In this reporting year, the emissions from Scope 3 were reported with Alpiq’s minority shareholdings, but otherwise excluded.

In addition, part of the reporting on nuclear power plants was integrated into the relevant topic sections in this reporting year for simplified readability.

In the Sustainability Report 2021, Alpiq no longer reports – as in the previous year – merely based on the GRI standards, but in accordance with the GRI standards, ‘Core’ option. In addition, Alpiq has expanded the scope of the materiality matrix. Two new, reassessed topics were included that were not in the first report: ‘Security of supply’ and ‘Biodiversity’. The justification for this is explained in the list of material topics. In the 2020 reporting year, we reported on the topic of ‘Employee satisfaction’; in the future, this will be more broadly defined and reported as the key topic of ‘Corporate culture’.

The Sustainability Report 2021 relates to the reporting year 2021 of Alpiq Holding Ltd.: 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2021.

The Sustainability Report 2020 for the reporting year 2020 of Alpiq Holding Ltd. was published on 25 February 2021.

The Sustainability Report of Alpiq Holding Ltd. is prepared annually.

If you have questions about this Sustainability Report, please contact Cornelia Wolf, Program Manager Sustainability (cornelia.wolf@alpiq.com; +41 62 286 77 16) or the Alpiq media office at media@alpiq.com or +41 62 286 71 10.

The Sustainability Report 2021 of Alpiq Holding Ltd. was prepared in accordance with the GRI standards, ‘Core’ option.

The content index can be found under ‘GRI index’.

The Sustainability Report 2021 of Alpiq Holding Ltd. is not subject to an external audit.