BIODIVERSITY

With biodiversity playing a critical role in providing food, water, energy and medicines, as well as being key to the regulation of our climate, water quality, pollution, pollination services, flood control and other factors, Sonnedix continues to promote measures to enhance biodiversity in our project locations.

Our ambition is to enhance our reporting on biodiversity-related metrics in the coming years, and to set further commitments in our Sustainability Strategy refresh.

HABITAT & ECOSYSTEM ENHANCEMENT

The construction and operation of solar plants have the potential to impact a wide range of habitats and protected species of flora and fauna. In all of our activities, we make all reasonable efforts to ensure that impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services are considered, avoided and minimised throughout our projects’ life cycle.

New projects are often required to have an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) which identifies and analyses risks. The assessment provides mitigation measures that are implemented in accordance with best practice advice. When an ESIA is not required for permitting, the ESG team reviews available studies, undertakes a streamlined ESIA analysis, or requests other additional studies if any risk is suspected. We conduct due diligence to make sure we are not endangering the biodiversity of an area.

Even directly on our plants, we promote biodiversity. On many sites, we have transferred the responsibility of grass maintenance from machines to grazing sheep. On numerous of our projects in France we have installed beehives, supporting millions of bees at any one time. Sonnedix doesn’t only grant the provision of land for the beehives, we also financially support local beekeepers, so they can continue to monitor the bee population and assess the impacts the growth in pollinators has on the local environment. The support also provides upfront capital so that beekeepers can sell some great local honey and generate a reliable income of their own. In parallel, we also have environmental initiatives on selected sites, whereby we create insect and solitary bees’ habitats, and provide bird houses and ponds that encourage species nesting and breeding where appropriate.