Stakeholder dialog
The relationships of CEZ Group with its stakeholders are governed by the Community Relations Policy. The policy covers all business activities to ensure a proper stakeholder engagement. CEZ Group wants to maintain long-term, stable, and strong stakeholder relationships built on trust, recognition of commitments and legitimate interests, and open communication.
Accountability
We act responsibly and build relationships based on ethics, integrity, sustainable development, and respect for human rights and communities affected by CEZ Group's business activities.
Transparency
We act transparently in our relationships and financial and non-financial communications, sharing truthful, relevant, complete, transparent, and useful information.
Active perception
We train our employees to listen actively, promote two-way and effective communication, and engage in direct, smooth, constructive, diverse, inclusive, and cross-cultural dialogue.
Participation and engagement
We encourage stakeholder participation and engagement in all CEZ Group business activities, supporting voluntary consultation processes or similar avenues of information exchange, particularly in the planning, construction, operation, and decommissioning of CEZ Group power projects.
Consensus
We strive to reach consensus with stakeholders, especially local communities and populations, considering their views and expectations.
Cooperation
We encourage cooperation with stakeholders to contribute to the CEZ Group's goals and values and to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Continuous improvement
We continuously strive for improvement and regularly review our stakeholder engagement mechanisms to ensure that we respond to stakeholders' needs most effectively.
We communicate with our stakeholders regularly. The objective of the open dialog is to establish their perception of the sustainability strategy and their opinion on the future direction of CEZ Group in relation to sustainability. The respective results shall be used in updating plans and strategies.
In 2019, a survey of material topics for CEZ Group’s stakeholders was conducted according to the international standard AA1000 SES (Stakeholder Engagement Standard), which is designed for companies so that an objective dialog and specific results can be assured.
Relevance matrix of topics for stakeholders and how it will develop over 3–5 years. For the stakeholder dialog purposes, stakeholders have been divided into two main groups.
- Top and middle management of CEZ Group and subsidiaries
- Supervisory board
- Certification bodies
- Customers
- Educational institutions and research facilities
- Employees
- Insurance companies and banks
- Local governments, local communities, and the public
- Media
- Nonprofit organizations
- Professional unions and associations
- Public and regulatory authorities
- Shareholders and investors
- Suppliers and contractors
- Trade unions
As a result of the survey, a materiality matrix was constructed, which showed the crucial topics and areas of interest of CEZ Group’s stakeholders. These are primarily focused on the environmental and social areas, indicating the current and future relevance of environmental protection, emissions (decarbonization), and safe operation and facilities. In the social area, two topics are significant: CEZ Group as a responsible employer and CEZ Group’s collaboration with local communities.
Materiality matrix
Environmental
- 2 Energy efficiency
- 4 Sustainable water use
- 5 Land restoration
- 7 Circular economy
- 14 Clean technologies and energy transformation
- 15 Smart cities
- 16 Research and development
Social
- 9 Responsible employer
- 12 Cooperation with local communities
Governance
- 8 Supply chain
- 10 Diversity and equal opportunity
- 11 Ethics and transparency
- 13 Responsible business
CEZ Group’s Stakeholder Materiality Matrix identifies as the most material topics three key areas: (1) Safe Operations, (2) Environmental Protection, and (3) Emissions. Safety and Environmental Protection Policy currently addresses all three topics; the Policy is publicly available online in both Czech and English. CEZ Group also expects its suppliers to behave responsibly and sustainably; that is why safety and environmental protection are integral parts of supplier obligations defined in the Commitment to Ethical Conduct. The commitment is included in General Terms and Conditions and is legally binding.
To reassess our approach to stakeholder management, CEZ Group launched a special ESG Initiative of Stakeholder Engagement and Stakeholder Materiality Matrix in 2022. The initiative is designed to identify actual and potential negative and positive impacts across all our activities and business relationships in the entire value chain. To prioritize the impacts and determine material topics, we will communicate with representatives of our stakeholders, and we will involve experts to ensure that the whole process is in line with best practice and international standards. Newly identified topics include issues related to EU taxonomy, human rights due diligence, supply chain management, biodiversity, and nature-positive targets.