Witteveen+Bos Annual Report 2024

Engineering: people’s work

Annual Report 2024

Plotting our course

Ensuring a better world tomorrow – that is what Witteveen+Bos worked hard for in 2024. On more than 4,600 projects worldwide, our employees created added value on biosphere, economy and society.

But we are also looking beyond tomorrow. Last year, we reflected on the direction and actions we want to take in the future. We refined our corporate strategy, outlining where we want to go and the course we want to take.

To follow this course, we need to work together. Not just with every Witteveen+Bos colleague across the globe, but also and especially with our clients and collaboration partners. Together, we look forward to making even more impact.

In this 2024 annual report, we share our financial results, take you through a selection of our projects, introduce you to the people behind Witteveen+Bos, and share our vision for the years ahead. We hope you enjoy reading it!

Growth and transition

Since our company’s foundation in 1946, we have contributed to a more sustainable and future-proof society with our ingenious solutions. We continued these efforts in 2024, working on over 4,600 projects to help tackle the challenges facing society. Our order portfolio grew, accompanied by significant employee growth and healthy financial results. Our revenue in 2024 was 199 million euros and our net result was 23.3 million euros.

Despite these positive final results, 2024 began slowly. Up until the summer, results were M€ 0.5 below budget. In the second half of the year, however, this deficit was more than made up for, with our final result being M€ 6.6 above budget. Our initial caution was tempered by improving markets, declining sick leave, and fantastic employee growth of 8.8 %. All in all, it was a year in which we worked hard to provide sustainable solutions for the challenges facing society and make our business operations more sustainable.

In times of success, however, it is wise to assess whether sufficient preparations are also being made for future challenges. How, for example, should we approach the increasing uncertainty in global politics, continuing shortages in the labour market, or the absence of a solution to the nitrogen problem? Such considerations meant that 2024 was also a year for reflecting on our future direction and actions. Accordingly, we worked on refining our strategy, developing an idea of where we want to head and how our policies and governance structure can help us get there.

The organisationwho we are and what we do

Witteveen+Bos is a consultancy and engineering firm that provides solutions to the challenges facing society in the fields of energy, water, infrastructure, the environment, and construction. Giving opportunities to talented new employees in a corporate culture of trust and entrepreneurship is an essential element of our DNA. It is also an explicit component of our company mission, which forms the basis of the four corporate objectives we report on in the following chapters.

Witteveen+Bos N.V. is a statutory two-tier company. It acts in accordance with the requirements applicable to such an organisation. The day-to-day management of the company is the responsibility of the board of directors, with external supervision being provided by the supervisory board to ensure continuity. We operate in close proximity to our clients, projects and collaboration partners, and to the labour market.

Our product-market combinations (PMCs) are responsible for maintaining a healthy portfolio of projects and clients. These PMCs are grouped into four knowledge areas, each represented by one of our four business lines: Infrastructure and Mobility; Built Environment; Deltas, Coasts and Rivers; and Energy, Water and Environment. The board of directors and the business lines are advised and supported by our departments: Communications, Facility Management, Finance, Information Management and Digital Support, Legal and Quality, ICT, and HR. These departments are responsible for the smooth running of our corporate processes across the company. Together with the business lines, they create a network in which colleagues from various countries and disciplines can collaborate, bringing knowledge and experience together from across the globe to produce the best possible solutions.

Our clients include both public and private organisations, from the national government, provinces, municipalities and water authorities to contractors, architecture and engineering firms, grid operators, drinking water companies, railway and port authorities, and other industry parties. We serve our markets from ten offices in the Netherlands, and from international offices in Belgium, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Panama, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates.

Doing business responsibly

Our approach to doing business is outlined in our company code. All Witteveen+Bos employees worldwide must act in accordance with this code. To facilitate this, we provide training, dilemma sessions, assessments and other activities in the area of compliance. Our company code also provides a link between our values and beliefs and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. Witteveen+Bos is a member of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), and we emphatically endorse its ten principles on human rights, labour rights, the environment, and anti-corruption. We are committed to ensuring that human rights are upheld throughout the entire supply chain in which we are active. Specifically, this means ensuring a safe and fair working environment for all individuals in which there is no room for

discrimination. We actively endorse the Modern Slavery Act, and the principles of this act have been incorporated into our corporate processes and our selection criteria for tenders and projects.

The year 2024

Value for society through projects

Our order portfolio is well filled across the company, significantly above the level we had expected. In 2024, we contributed on more than 4,600 projects to tackling challenges in areas including climate change (adaptation), biodiversity, liveability and mobility in cities, and the transitions in the water, energy and heat sectors.

Across the globe, water scarcity is increasing and pollution is leading to a decline in water quality. As well as this, the effects of climate change and population growth are increasingly being felt, and extra effort is required to meet environmental standards (e.g. for odour, vibrations and PFAS) for both industry and government. In other words,

there is much work for us to do. In the Netherlands, the Water Framework Directive (WFD) is leading to more projects in the traditional drinkingwater domain. We are currently working, for example, on adapting nine wastewater treatment plants for the Vechtstromen water authority. We have also been asked by various other water authorities to advise on WFD cases involving the quality of ponds and lakes, and for the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management we conducted an interim evaluation of its WFD targets.

Our expertise is also in demand outside the Netherlands. Oman’s Nama Water Services, for example, approached us in Belgium to provide trainings on wastewater treatment, and in autumn the Water as Leverage project in Cartagena, Colombia entered its second phase (pre-feasibility). After an initial assessment of the challenge’s scope, this will involve assessing concrete design solutions for (financial) feasibility and then developing them further.

In the interest of accelerating housing initiatives, the Province of Overijssel asked us, together with Antea Group and Rho Adviseurs, to support Overijssel municipalities with a wide range of consultancy and engineering services for the Bouwbrigade programme. The province aims to build at least 42,300 affordable homes for sale and rent by 2030, including social housing. In Amsterdam, our work on the Zuidasdok project was extended with another multiyear framework agreement. On this complex spatial and technical challenge, road and rail traffic must be allowed to continue during the project’s works execution. In Antwerp, work on the right bank of the Oosterweel Link is well and truly underway. The link will direct through traffic underground, greatly enhancing liveability in the city and improving accessibility. We are also supervising the construction of the ECLUSE tunnel under the Scheldt in Antwerp. This 1,500 metre-long tunnel will house a steam pipeline that makes process steam available to businesses on the right bank of the Port of Antwerp. This will allow current steam production using natural gas to be discontinued, facilitating an annual CO 2 reduction of 100,000 to 150,000 tonnes.

The energy transition is a global issue, and thanks to improved and more integrated collaboration our business lines are adding increasingly more value to it, from the planning phase through to design. We are also providing more and more advice within this transition on relatively new disciplines, such as hydrogen and high voltage. Our framework agreements with Energinet in Denmark, Elia in Belgium, and Gasunie and TenneT in the Netherlands are providing many opportunities. For Gasunie, for example, we are working on the development of a new offshore hydrogen network in the North Sea, the renovation of natural gas networks, and the construction of transport networks for substances including hydrogen and CO 2. For TenneT, we are

actively contributing to a variety of projects related to grid expansion and reinforcement. In the United Kingdom, we are supporting the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero in preparing heat network zoning plans.

Ports are hugely important for the global transport of goods, and they also play an important role in the energy transition. In 2024, work began on the design of the Energiehaven in IJmuiden, which will play a crucial role in further developing offshore wind farms in the North Sea. It will also be crucial in the Netherlands’ efforts to achieve its national sustainability targets. Meanwhile, the quay walls in Rotterdam’s Tweede Petroleumhaven and along its Yangtze Canal feature the first large structural elements in a marine environment to have been constructed using geopolymer concrete, resulting in a significant CO 2 reduction. The nitrogen issue has led to a decrease in traditional

area development activities in the Netherlands, whereas internationally we are seeing an increase in the demand for landscape design involving nature-based solutions (NBS). Our offices in Dubai, Singapore and Indonesia are working together to develop this market, which has already led to various projects, including a mangrove park in Saudi Arabia. Because they involve integrated decision-making, NBS projects bring together disciplines that transcend our company’s business lines. One recently awarded project, for example, involves strengthening mangroves near a village in Indonesia while simultaneously providing 100 families with sanitation. We are also going to develop three sites in Indonesia for the Dutch government, combining nature restoration with land-based value creation – for example, by establishing links to tourism, education, aquaculture, permaculture, or renewable energy. On this project, area development will serve the interests of NBS instead of the other way around, which is an interesting new development.

Our PMCs devote considerable attention to research and development, and innovation will continue to be one of our core activities in 2025 and beyond. Digitalisation, sustainability and circularity will have a prominent place in these efforts, in part due to sustainability reporting regulations.

Attracting and developing talented employees

The increasing demand for our services led to higher growth in 2024 than had been budgeted for. We welcomed 265 new employees to the company, with a net growth of 131 employees. This growth, achieved despite increasing labour market shortages, brought us to a total of 1,578 Witteveen+Bos colleagues worldwide. Thanks to our projects’ large significance for society, the opportunities we offer for personal and professional development, and our informal corporate culture and pleasant working environment, we remain an attractive employer for (relatively) young employees. In a revamped approach to our labour market communications, we are focusing on frequent contact moments with our target group, which is proving to be a key ingredient of our success. Our high worldwide net growth of 8.8 % in 2024 (compared to 1.7 %

in 2023 and 1 % in our 2024 budget) was accompanied by a relatively low employee turnover rate of 9.2 % (compared to 13.8 % in 2023).

We believe it is important that our employees continue to learn and develop. To make learning and development – and the opportunities we offer in these areas – more accessible, we increased the scope of our study regulations in the Netherlands and made our digital learning platform, PLUSschool, available internationally. We also devoted significant attention to specific learning pathways in PMCs and to personal leadership.

We have also paid significant attention to sick leave in recent years, which led in 2024 to a decline in this figure. Our sustained focus on providing good, healthy working conditions was further solidified with the establishment of the Health and Well-Being expertise group in the HR department.

Finally, in 2024 we worked together with our social partners and pension fund in the Netherlands to revise our pension scheme ahead of the new pensions act, while in Belgium a works council was established to ensure the effective

representation of employees’ interests at our growing Belgian entity.

Digitalisation

The foundation of our digitalisation efforts has been further strengthened and our portfolio of digital products is growing steadily. The new Information Management and Digital Support business function forms a bridge between our business lines and departments in the interest of companywide innovations. Our approach to data-driven working has been strengthened by a new ICT and AI vision, a new data policy, and the first version of a data platform. M€ 2 has been set aside to invest further in this in 2025. The permanent appointment of a chief information and security officer has also contributed to our capacity to work digitally in a safe manner and to our further professionalisation in this area.

We have gained experience in what is possible (and not) with AI, and we are already successfully using selfdeveloped AI innovations such as ChatWBT, a proprietary in-house version of ChatGPT. Such innovations contribute to more efficient processes and more enjoyment at work. Although, on the one hand, we are quick to innovate (on a small scale) and motivated to do so, we have also found that

it can be difficult to effectively protect against risks and scale up.

Work is currently being done on several international projects and tenders for innovative digital products, including 3D concrete printing and IBIS in Singapore, the digitalisation of projects in the Netherlands and Belgium using ANT, and the BlueCAN Tool. Developing and selling products represents a new revenue model for us, incorporating processes which ensure better administration of invested hours and more straightforward remuneration for the products we deliver. To accommodate the different risk profile this revenue model involves, the new entity Witteveen+Bos Digital Products B.V. was established.

Climate and biodiversity

Many efforts were made in 2024 to achieve the three targets of our Climate and Biodiversity programme. These targets are climate-neutral business operations by 2030, maximum impact on biodiversity on all our projects by 2030, and climate-neutral projects by 2040.

Detailed reports on the carbon emissions of our business operations are now available in our revamped CO 2 dashboard. Although emissions per FTE are declining, total emissions are increasing. With the introduction of our mobility programme in 2025, a major step will be taken in recording the carbon emissions of individuals’ work-related mobility at the company.

We do not (yet) have an overview of the total carbon emissions on our projects, meaning we cannot determine how close we are to achieving climate neutrality on projects. The same applies to biodiversity, although initiatives are currently underway to measure our impact.

By incorporating nature and biodiversity into our designs, we are increasing the climate resilience of our projects. For ten years now, we have employed our sustainable design principles to help us do this. Last year, a handbook on designing for biodiversity was added to these, together

with an accompanying learning module on integrating naturebased measures into the design process. A similar handbook is currently being developed for climate-neutral design which will provide designers with concrete guidelines. Externally, too, we are contributing to sharing knowledge on biodiversity: we contribute to workshops and provide courses to clients and knowledge exchange partners, and we are a partner on initiatives such as the Delta Programme for biodiversity restoration and Collectief Natuurinclusief.

Detailed financial report

In 2024, we successfully extended the positive turnaround in our chargeable score. After reversing a negative trend in this area in 2023, last year we again achieved a higher chargeable score than in preceding years. We showed ourselves to be capable of quickly deploying new employees on projects, with significantly improved market conditions contributing positively to this. A side effect of this positive development, however, was felt in our work in progress.

The balance of both projects in progress and accounts receivable increased more sharply than revenue, which itself also increased sharply. The reason for this was, in part, a substantial increase in revenue in the second half of the financial year. Staying on top of working capital therefore remains a point of attention for the organisation, as does timely invoicing throughout the year.

Long-term liabilities decreased further as a result of regular repayments. Owing to this and a higher net result, the solvency ratio at year end increased from 44.7 % to 46.4 %. The current ratio also increased at year end from 1.69 to 1.76. The values of both these ratios show that, at year end, Witteveen+Bos was well positioned in terms of liquidity.

Stable profits (and, as a result, stable dividends), together with a stable strategic course, are important for the continued existence of our participation system. This system makes it possible for Witteveen+Bos to partly finance its own longterm growth by issuing shares to supplement bank credit. In 2024, we issued shares with a total worth of M€ 1.8.

Following profit-sharing payments made to all employees, the company’s operating result was paid out to shareholders in the form of dividends. This form of profit sharing underscores a deep conviction of ours: everyone who contributes to Witteveen+Bos’s success should share in that success. It also stimulates us to make each year a successful one and not to rely on past achievements.

Generally speaking, Witteveen+Bos adopts a cautious approach to risks. On projects, we seek to limit our liability to clients to a reasonable level. Our Legal and Quality department monitors projects and contracts to help mitigate risk, and all new employees must complete an e-learning course on risk awareness in integrity and compliance.

The increasing amount of work being done on digital solutions in recent years necessitated an expansion of our risk management model. This led to our establishment of a QHSEI management system. This system comprises a set of agreements which make clear what is expected of employees

working on projects or within the departments. It also explains how we communicate and report on this and outlines the procedures we follow in doing so.

As a result of our business operations, Witteveen+Bos can be involved in claims, proceedings or investigations that potentially have financial and/or other consequences for the company. We expect that, as at the close of 2024, any potential negative financial developments have been adequately accounted for.

To control financial risks, we use the same project administration systems worldwide, with the different entities’ financial records being maintained in a single integrated system. Continuous efforts are being made to improve information provision, in part through the use of visualisation tools that make information available which is up-to-date and both time- and location-independent. To limit currency risks, we conclude contracts wherever possible in euros or US

dollars, with any contracts with subcontractors being concluded in the same currency.

In light of the various uncertainties at home and abroad, we will continue to operate with caution in the coming years. In 2025, we will maintain our focus on retaining long-term economic value by remaining adaptive while ensuring productivity and cost control.

Non-financial performance indicators

As part of our preparations for Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and forward-looking business operations, in 2024 we worked on further developing our sustainability strategy and policy, and on translating them into concrete, measurable key performance indicators (KPIs). The process of defining these KPIs and recording data has now largely been completed. In the course of 2025, we will begin employing this manner of reporting and start monitoring our performance.

These KPIs will make it possible to accurately monitor and evaluate progress on our sustainability targets. KPIs exist for everything from reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption to increasing the share of renewable energy and stimulating circular procurement.

This will not only enable us to report transparently on our sustainability efforts in the future; it will also allow us to adjust and adapt our strategy in line with new insights and developments.

We have reviewed the Omnibus package on investment simplification recently presented by the European Commission. Despite postponement of the legal obligation to do so, we intend to continue the steps already taken in relation to ESG reporting procedures.

Corporate governance

In 2024, the board of directors of Witteveen+Bos was formed by Wouter Bijman, Eveline Buter and Stephan van der Biezen. The company’s supervisory board consisted of Peter Reinders, Angelique Heckman, Daniëlle van der Sluijs, and Roland van Dijk. At the annual general meeting on 9 April 2024, Peter Reinders was appointed chairperson and Roland van Dijk was confirmed as a new supervisory board member. In their current compositions, Witteveen+Bos’s board of directors and supervisory board both possess a balance between male and female members.

Witteveen+Bos strives to ensure that the male-female ratio in its various management layers adequately reflects its employee population. This population comprises approximately two-thirds men and one-third women. In the management layers below the board of directors, the malefemale ratio in 2024 was as follows. Of the 4 business line managers, 1 was a woman. Of the 38 PMC leaders, 30 were male and 8 were female. Of the 7 heads of department, 5 were male and 2 were female. Our target ratios, therefore, have not yet been achieved everywhere. This remains a constant point of attention in our appointment procedures.

2025 and beyond

The pressure on space, nature and biodiversity, together with the increasing scarcity of raw materials and energy, has increased the worldwide demand for ingenious solutions for biosphere, society and economy. As a result, the possibilities for our professionals seem endless. But precisely in the complex and dynamic context in which we operate, it is important to establish company-wide frameworks that help us achieve the right balance between effectiveness and efficiency, and between autonomous decision-making and increased synergy.

The organic growth of our company in recent years, which has led to us now comprising almost 1,600 employees, is expected to continue. We will therefore be establishing a firm foundation for a refined strategic course in 2025. It will outline how we want to increase the effectiveness of our decisionmaking, manage risks, deal with labour market shortages, and remain flexible and adaptive in our business operations. It will also offer us direction and inspiration on the road to 2030.

We are resolved to deploy our knowledge, products and services in a more focused way over the next five years. We will focus on future-proof solutions for the physical living environment and the transitions in society of which they are a part. Within this area of focus, we will choose the tasks in which our added value for society and our own returns are the greatest. We expect continued revenue growth in 2025 in line with further employee growth, and we will be focusing on stabilising our returns. We will also continue investing in innovating and broadening what we can offer in the ecosystems in which we operate. This will help us remain a healthy and meaningful company in the future.

Deventer, 17 March 2025

Board of directors, Witteveen+Bos N.V.

Wouter Bijman

Eveline Buter

Stephan van der Biezen

Supervisory board’s report

With this report, the supervisory board of Witteveen+Bos N.V. (hereafter ‘RvC’) aims to provide the stakeholders of Witteveen+Bos with an insight into how the RvC performed its supervisory role in 2024.

Witteveen+Bos successful in a turbulent world

The context in which Witteveen+Bos operates is persistently complex. Internationally, 2024 was turbulent both economically and geopolitically. In the Netherlands, it became increasingly apparent that major challenges – such as national security, housing construction, migration, and the nitrogen issue – require an integrated approach in which shared political will and respect for the rule of law are essential.

In the context of this world full of persistent uncertainties, Witteveen+Bos closed 2024 well. Revenue and employee numbers again grew, results were positive compared to the budget, and the order portfolio also developed positively. Many assignments were won, including several high-profile projects. Examples of these include the renovation and replacement assignment for the IJmuiden pumping station, the framework agreement for Zuidasdok, and the redevelopment of ESA’s technology campus.

RvC closely involved in both strategic and operational issues

Throughout 2024, the RvC again interacted constructively with the board of directors, both on strategic issues and operational matters.

Strategic discussions covered topics including the company’s vision for the future, the long-term strategy corresponding to this, and the most appropriate governance model in light of current challenges and the desire to further develop administrative effectiveness. The RvC is of the opinion that important steps have been taken on these topics.

These provide an effective basis for the necessary next step of further defining and implementing the company’s strategic focus (in the Netherlands and abroad) and administrative structure. The participation system was also discussed, and with it the partial financing of the company, in relation to tax developments. The RvC noted that the board of directors took great care in analysing the situation, devising alternative scenarios, and determining the choices that needed to be made.

Operational discussions were linked to periodic reports and topical issues. The primary drivers of operational success were standard agenda items. Productivity as measured by the CH-score, working capital, and liquidity were recurring topics of discussion and required constant attention. Given the recurrent nature of these issues, their relationship to administrative effectiveness and appropriate modes of governance was also discussed. Activities in Belgium developed positively. As also observed last year, well-planned digitalisation is important both in terms of the company’s services and its internal organisation. Witteveen+Bos was not able to take the desired steps in this area in 2024. In 2025, it will be given greater attention. People remain Witteveen+Bos’s most important asset. It is therefore pleasing to note that, following focused attention on the topic, the rate of sick leave is showing a downward trend. It is also pleasing to note that, for the time being, Witteveen+Bos is able to attract sufficient new talent in a competitive market. Views were exchanged with the board of directors on market developments, including stagnant markets resulting from, for example, the nitrogen issue.

Compliance was also discussed, both in response to external events and as part of the online training RvC members undertook. Witteveen+Bos devoted ample attention to issues such as safety, quality, compliance and digitalisation, and the RvC noted that the board of directors is pursuing targeted policies on these issues and intends to continue doing so.

The RvC also met with the works council twice in 2024. Topics addressed during these meetings included the operational implementation of existing policies on remuneration, and the influence of the company’s participation system on leadership in its operational structure.

Continuity of RvC ensured

The composition of the RvC changed in 2024. After completing his second term, Hans van der Ven stepped down. His role as chairperson was taken over by Peter Reinders. Roland van Dijk joined the RvC. His engineering background and experience in strategy development ensures his appointment will be a reinforcement. It also ensures the continuity of the RvC’s functioning. Collaboration between the RvC and the board of directors was constructive. Together, the RvC and the board conducted a self-evaluation under professional guidance by an external party.

In its interaction with the board of directors in the coming year, the RvC will focus on Witteveen+Bos’s strategic development as well as the resulting focus in terms of services, markets and talent development. Attention will also be given to ensuring a successful practical implementation of the company’s refined strategy, to the new administrative composition following changes in the board of directors, and to closely directing operational performance. 2025 thus promises to be another challenging year in an uncertain world, in which Witteveen+Bos will constantly have to find the balance between maintaining its strategic course and ensuring operational agility.

RvC endorses board of directors’ profit appropriation proposal

Based on the analyses that were carried out, the RvC endorses the board of directors’ profit appropriation proposal. The RvC also recommends – based in part on a meeting held with the accountant – that the annual general meeting adopt the annual financial statement and discharge the board of directors from liability for its management and policies and the RvC for its supervisory duties.

Our thanks go to the board of directors of Witteveen+Bos. This year, the board focused on preparing the organisation for its adoption of a more explicit strategy. When executed properly, this will lay the foundation for the company’s continued existence. We see this as an important step. Special thanks go to all Witteveen+Bos employees, whose abilities, efforts and commitment were essential to the company achieving a good financial result in 2024. Finally, we thank our clients for placing their trust in Witteveen+Bos.

The RvC looks forward with confidence to 2025, which promises to be a year of continuous development for Witteveen+Bos and its employees.

Deventer, 17 March 2025

Supervisory board (RvC)

Peter Reinders (chairperson)

Angelique Heckman

Daniëlle van der Sluijs

Roland van Dijk

Solutions for biosphere, economy and society

Helping solve the major challenges facing society

Our mission is clear: use our ingenious solutions for biosphere, economy and society to contribute to a more sustainable and future-proof society. We carry out this mission primarily on our projects, and in 2024 we offered society and clients across 51 countries added value on projects in the fields of water, energy, infrastructure, the environment, and construction. From policy, planning and design to contract preparation and works supervision, we are active throughout the chain, devising concrete, sustainable and integrated solutions by exploiting our expertise, organisational strength, knowledge, experience, data, and technology.

The challenges we work on are increasing in complexity. Many of them, such as the changing climate, global urbanisation, sharply declining biodiversity, and the energy and water transitions, are interrelated global challenges that increasingly impact on our project portfolio. These are augmented by challenges more specific to Dutch society, such as the nitrogen issue, the housing challenge, asylum seekers, and the national replacement and renovation programme. All these issues involve many stakeholders,

meaning that collaboration between public and private parties, thorough analyses and research, and determination are all essential to solving them.

Witteveen+Bos aims for long-term, sustainable relationships with clients, partners, and research institutes. Convinced that knowledge grows in collaboration, we believe you can only produce top quality by working together. Our interactions with clients and partners, together with the

internal collaborations between colleagues, are what bring our ingenious solutions to life. As well as this, we stimulate moves to a more climate-neutral, nature-inclusive and circular economy in our collaborations and on our projects, as we believe this is the path to valuable, sustainable and impactful solutions.

> 4,677

number of countries worked

number of completed projects

51 2,260 > 4,700

43 2,430

+ PlusPortal: the centre of every project

Complex projects require a lot of communication between clients and contractors. And not only at the regularly scheduled moments. Spontaneous phone calls and emails are common occurrences. But there is a solution to this problem. The PlusPortal, developed by Witteveen+Bos, is a digital dashboard that allows project managers to easily share information on project progress. Partners are updated in real time in the most transparent, centralised and unambiguous way possible. The PlusPortal also allows partners to share information. They can provide feedback on work performed and project progress, making it possible for timely adjustments to be made as required. This inspires confidence, keeps stakeholders up to date, and ensures transparent and cost-efficient collaboration. The PlusPortal is available in a standard version, or it can be customised. We have already developed custom versions for clients including COA and the Municipality of Haarlem. COA, for example, wanted a more integrated overview of all its reception locations. We can also adjust the PlusPortal quickly and flexibly at short notice.

+ Sustainably meeting growing drinking water demand

In Bonaire, population growth and increased tourism has led to a rise in drinking water demand. Insufficient groundwater is available to meet this demand, making the island entirely dependent on converting sea water into drinking water through reverse osmosis. In light of this fact, Water- en Energiebedrijf Bonaire (WEB) elected to expand its drinking water plant in Hato, adding two extra treatment units and a new post-treatment unit. On this project, Witteveen+Bos was responsible for project management, engineering (coordination) and works supervision. The water treatment process in Hato consists of three steps. First, a pretreatment step occurs. Then, double reverse osmosis takes place, in which pressure is applied to filter salts and other components out of the water. Finally, a post-treatment step adds supplements such as calcium and magnesium to the water. Uniquely, this process desalinates the sea water without using any chemicals: nothing is added to the concentrated water that is returned to the sea.

+ Groundbreaking Voltastraat PFAS project

At Voltastraat 86 in Doetinchem, a unique remediation operation is underway. It is one of the first projects involving very high concentrations of PFAS in which contaminated soil is being excavated and highly effective groundwater treatment is taking place on site. Together with TAUW, Witteveen+Bos is carrying out this project as Adviescombinatie Doetinchem (ACD). For years, the Voltastraat site functioned as a large-scale storage facility for PFAS-containing firefighting foam. Over time, this foam leaked into the ground. The resulting contamination is now being addressed through a soil and groundwater remediation operation. A sourcebased approach is being employed in which as many kilograms of PFAS as possible are removed from the soil through wet excavation. The groundwater is treated and then returned for additional PFAS removal. Witteveen+Bos produced the technical design for the innovative water treatment installation. This installation consists of a clever combination of separate process steps, each of which has either previously been tested in the field or in a lab, or is already being deployed on a large scale.

Taking responsibility

As a consultancy and engineering firm, we acknowledge our responsibility to address sustainability issues and positively impact society. Both in our business operations and through the projects we work on, we can create genuine value for society together with our clients and partners.

To identify the areas we can generate the most value in, we conduct a materiality analysis with our stakeholders every four years. In 2024, this was a double materiality analysis, the results of which were made available at the start of 2025. This analysis identified and evaluated both the financial materiality and the ‘impact materiality’ of our company, partly in anticipation of the reporting requirements of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) under the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS).

The analysis revealed that Witteveen+Bos is expected to be able to make the most difference in the following areas (with the SDGs to which each area is linked in brackets):

- clean drinking water and sanitation facilities (SDG 6);

- the energy transition (part of SDG 7);

- sustainable mobility and infrastructure (part of SDG 9);

- sustainable built environments (combination of SDGs 3 and 11);

- climate action to combat climate change and its effects (SDG13);

- healthy habitats (SDGs 14 and 15).

For the next five years, therefore, these areas will play a leading role in our company’s strategy. They will be embedded in the organisation by means of three strategic pillars: Portfolio; Talent and Knowledge; and Organisation and Culture. Most of our activities already fall into one of the above areas, as the following small selection shows.

The energy transition

We are currently active in a number of long-term collaborations with leading clients. In January 2025, for example, a strategic partnership with Gasunie was confirmed. Together with WSP, we will be Gasunie’s permanent partner for the next ten years in engagement and stakeholder management and conditioning on assignments including the envisioned hydrogen network.

For the European Space Agency, we will be working on the sustainable redevelopment of its European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk. Over a period of

six years, in three phases, this location will undergo a metamorphosis that proactively seeks to maximise energy savings, reduce the location’s carbon footprint, exploit renewable energy sources, and minimise environmental impact.

Several multiyear projects were completed and delivered in 2024, such as the Afsluitdijk in the Netherlands. This has created room to take on challenging new hydraulic engineering projects. Internationally, we worked on various projects for ports, land reclamation, and offshore energy last year. A large floating solar park in Indonesia is just one example. Work also began on the design of the Energiehaven in IJmuiden, which will play a crucial role in further developing offshore wind farms in the North Sea and be essential to the Netherlands achieving its national sustainability targets.

Sustainable built environments

We employ a diverse range of expertise to help create liveable, sustainable and resilient urban and built environments. For the Municipality of Leiden, we are working on redeveloping the station area and Morspoort site. An underground parking facility will be built where the current parking garage stands. This will create space above ground for apartments and sustainably enhance the liveability of the area.

As part of our framework agreement with the municipalities of Haarlem and Zandvoort, we are working on climate adaptation and liveability in the Nieuw Noord district. Embracing its location adjacent to Natura 2000-protected dunes and the sea, nature present in the dunes has been introduced into Nieuw Noord. These and the district’s other green elements are fed by rainwater from the roads and roofs.

We also worked on design assignments for underground parking garages in Zwolle, Alkmaar and Hoorn, and we conducted interesting sustainability studies as part of a framework agreement with the Municipality of Amstelveen.

Sustainable mobility and infrastructure

On the Oosterweel Link project in Belgium, we are continuing with the final design and implementation plan phases, while in Amsterdam we are working further on the Zuidasdok project as part of a new multiyear framework agreement. These projects ensure that we will remain a leading player in the coming years in large-scale infrastructure development in our home markets of the Netherlands and Belgium. Work is also continuing on the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, the immersed tunnel between Germany and Denmark that will stretch to over eighteen kilometres in length. In the summer of 2024, the tunnel’s first element was inaugurated by Denmark’s King Frederik X.

In February 2024, we were awarded the task of performing specialist recalculations on dozens of steel and concrete bridges for Rijkswaterstaat as part of the national replacement and renovation (VenR) programme. The Moerdijk Bridge was the first to be reassessed. The VenR programme is huge, with hundreds of bridges, locks, tunnels and viaducts in need of renewal. Meanwhile, in the second half of 2024 we started work on the PTZ tunnel renovations project in South Holland. This project involves the large-scale maintenance of seven tunnels.

Clean drinking water and sanitation facilities

In Oman, Witteveen+Bos and its partners guided young engineers at Nama Water Services in optimising drinking water network designs. The goal was to employ advanced

analyses and international knowledge transfer to help realise cost-efficient and robust network expansions.

Following its successful full-scale implementation at the Horstermeer wastewater treatment plant, the innovative O3-STEP® filter developed by Witteveen+Bos and its partners will be applied at the Amstelveen treatment plant. The O3-STEP® filter is a sustainable and cost-effective solution for removing nutrients, micropollutants and suspended solids from wastewater that results in lower operating costs and reduced carbon emissions.

Dealing with climate change

For the Waterschap Limburg water authority, we will continue working with five other parties over the next six years on various dyke reinforcement projects along the Meuse, with the third framework agreement in a row having been concluded. Since 2016, we have been working with Arcadis on flood safety in Limburg, including by applying innovative solutions. The highest self-closing flood barrier in the Netherlands, for example, was built there.

Climate and biodiversity

In 2024, many activities were undertaken in connection with our three climate targets: climate-neutral business operations by 2030; maximum impact on biodiversity on all our projects by 2030; and climate-neutral projects by 2040. Although emissions per FTE are declining, our employee growth has seen total emissions increase. Detailed reports on the carbon emissions of our business operations are now available in our revamped CO 2 dashboard. We do not yet, however, have an overview of the emissions on our projects, meaning we cannot determine how close we are to achieving climate neutrality on our projects. The same applies to biodiversity, for which we are working on initiatives to identify our impact in line with reporting requirement changes under the CSRD.

We created a handbook on designing for biodiversity in 2024, together with an accompanying learning module for

an existing course on integrated design. A similar handbook is now being developed for climate-neutral design. Together, these handbooks will offer designers concrete guidelines for improving the biodiversity and climate impact of their designs. Via the Collectief Natuurinclusief initiative, we are also encouraging clients to demand nature-inclusive tenders for their projects and contributing to developing industrywide measurement methods for biodiversity.

How should we approach emission-intensive materials such as concrete, steel and asphalt in light of our ambition to have climate-neutral projects by 2040? Given the current indispensability of these materials and the fact that emission-free alternatives are not yet widely deployable, this is a complex issue. An interdisciplinary working group has drafted a company transition pathway for concrete that provides practical guidelines for reducing emissions from the use of concrete on projects. This pathway describes how the industry is working towards climate-neutral concrete, the role Witteveen+Bos can play in it, and the steps we are going to take to achieve our 2040 target. Ultimately, we aim to establish similar transition pathways for steel and energy, as these are the biggest sources of carbon emissions on our projects.

Safety

The construction industry has one of the highest rates of workplace accidents. As consultants and engineers, we can make the industry safer by incorporating safety considerations into our designs, during construction, and while providing supervision and direction. We are signatories to the GCVB governance code for safety in construction –which makes safety awareness a compulsory element of tenders and contracts – and participate in the code’s lead group. We have embedded the actions promoted by this code in our organisation, and in the coming years we will contribute further to the code’s ambition of realising structural safety improvements in the construction industry. Since 2017, Witteveen+Bos has been certified under the Safety Culture Ladder, and last year we successfully retained our certification at step 4 (of a possible 5).

SROI

Our Social Return on Investment (SROI) policy aims to positively impact society by investing in employment opportunities for people distanced from the labour market.

This policy applies to the Netherlands and is based on four pillars: Work; Education; Social and CommunityBased Activities; and Procurement.

Implementing our SROI policy’s Work pillar is challenging for a consultancy and engineering firm. Clients often require that applicants be assigned to a specific project or come from the relevant municipality, and an additional barrier is formed by the specialist knowledge our work typically requires. Nevertheless, in 2024 we were able to offer employment – via participation agency Spaarne Werkt – in our Urban Infrastructure group to an architect who had fled Sudan several years earlier. She is now making valuable contributions on projects for bridge (re)design and residential area development. We have considerably more experience with the Education pillar, for example in the form of guest lessons. On Girls’ Day in April 2024, we welcomed a group of 25 girls from second grade at Lyceum Kralingen to our Rotterdam office. These pupils were given an insight into the world of civil engineering, with the renovation of the De Ronde Hoep pumping station and associated dyke reinforcements being used to illustrate challenges in flood safety and climate change.

+ InnovaHub: pioneering in the polder

In Stad aan ’t Haringvliet, InnovaHub is supplying seventeen households with sustainable heating and cooling. This local energy hub, developed by Hylife Innovations, intelligently links supply to demand and can store energy for short- or long-term periods. Witteveen+Bos acted as systems integrator for Hylife and provided various support services. In principle, InnovaHub runs on 100 % sustainable energy. The challenge is linking this fluctuating energy supply to variable demand. If overproduction occurs, InnovaHub stores the excess energy either by using batteries or (via electrolysis) green hydrogen, or in the form of (waste) heat or cold. Shared electric cars in a neighbourhood reduce the need for a second car, but Hylife Innovations goes a step further and integrates mobility into its energy hub. Witteveen+Bos identified risk factors –such as hydrogen storage – arranged the permits, and carried out extensive safety studies and calculations.

+ Making Nieuw-Milligen base permit-ready

The Ministry of Defence wants to move the Marine Corps from its current barracks to another defence base in Nieuw-Milligen, which will involve increasing the base’s capacity and replacing most of the existing buildings. But the biggest challenge is getting this as-yet abstract project approved under all applicable regulations (e.g. nitrogen, target species, spatial integration). Witteveen+Bos is closely involved in the preliminary phase, providing the engagement and stakeholder management together with support services including geohydrological, archaeological and nitrogen deposition studies. We are also providing demolition specifications for the existing structures. Efforts in engagement and stakeholder management are primarily focusing on government and permit authorities. It is crucial that the required permits are granted in time to secure financing at an early stage. In light of this, Witteveen+Bos used the functional requirements to determine the bases for various environmental studies and an environmental impact assessment. This assessment has since been conducted. It explored several design variants and proposed mitigation measures including extra accommodation locations for bats and measures to improve the quality of existing natural assets.

+ Mangrove restoration in Saudi Arabia

Tarout Bay in Saudi Arabia was once home to rich mangrove vegetation that has since been decimated by land reclamation. Now the country wants the mangroves to return to Tarout Bay. It is an ambitious project. At 4,000 hectares, the mangrove forest Saudi Arabia envisions will be the largest in the Persian Gulf, complete with a visitor centre and associated infrastructure. Although the ultimate aim of the project is to restore nature, education (on nature) is also playing a leading role. Witteveen+Bos investigated the best methods and locations for planting new mangroves. We also created a spatial design for an associated park and a draft design for the visitor centre. This involved conducting a preliminary study using various types of potential visitors. A crucial contribution to this project was our additional preliminary study to determine the optimal location and planting approach. The area’s dry climate and relatively salty sea water pose challenging living conditions for mangroves, so the management and maintenance plan created by us will be key to the project’s success.

+ Rijnland: improving water quality

In line with the European Water Framework Directive (WFD), the Rijnland water authority is working on improving water quality in its region. The WFD, adopted in 2000, stipulates that waterbodies need to provide good habitats for the plants and animals that live there by 2027 at the latest. Witteveen+Bos is supporting Rijnland carrying out its WFD projects. From developing designs to initiating studies and permit scans, we are ensuring that the water authority can successfully put its projects out to tender. Rijnland’s portfolio primarily consists of a diverse range of small projects. In one example, insulation has been installed at the Zegerplas to prevent basin water with a high phosphorus content from entering the lake. Several of Rijnland’s projects have already been completed, and the water authority intends to meet its WFD targets by 1 January 2027.

+ Velsen-Noord energy harbour new base of operations for offshore wind

The Velsen-Noord energy harbour will play an important role in the national energy transition. The planned development will be crucial in the construction and maintenance of wind farms in the North Sea. The harbour’s terminal will have a surface area of fifteen hectares and feature a 580 metrelong deep-sea quay. Very specific infrastructure is needed at the harbour to accommodate large ships. Located on the sea side of the North Sea Canal, the harbour will also be affected by external influences including wind, tides and waves. The design has to take these into consideration. The extremely heavy wind turbine components that need to be transloaded at the harbour pose another interesting design challenge, while the ground beneath the site, which partly consists of steel slag from the nearby Tata Steel premises, requires extensive investigation and will demand specific methods of works execution. The harbour is expected to be operational in 2028.

+ Replacing antique water passages under modern constraints

It sounds like a simple task: replace fifteen water passages consisting of siphons and culverts under the Wilhelmina and Zuid-Willemsvaart canals. But the condition of these passages demands that they be replaced without delay, and local constraints exist which differ for each passage. For Rijkswaterstaat, Witteveen+Bos is conducting a planning study and providing services for contract preparation and tender supervision. Many stakeholders are involved on the project: two water authorities, landowners, cable and pipeline operators, and various municipalities. This makes it a complex task. For the planning study, various parties provide data which forms the basis for designs and design variants. By visualising this data digitally and in real time, a thorough overview of the difficulty involved can be obtained. Increasing the project’s complexity are local factors such as space limitations, environmental concerns (e.g. biodiversity, nitrogen), the various water systems involved, and nearby infrastructure including cables and pipes. Because not all passages are equally complex, we compared and ranked them. This allows Rijkswaterstaat to prioritise them, with the simplest replacements being carried out first.

Talents

Choosing Witteveen+Bos

‘During my civil engineering studies, I took classes on water treatment by Freek Kramer from Witteveen+Bos. Then, while doing an internship at the company, my interest in wastewater and drinking water was further stimulated. The combination of water and engineering really appealed to me. After graduating, I had a choice between Witteveen+Bos and the water authority: both offered me a job. I chose Witteveen+Bos because of the challenges and the young people. I joined a great team. On Thursdays or Fridays, we often go into the city centre for a beer. Some of my colleagues have also become my friends.’

Extra treatment step

‘The challenges in our field are huge. Take, for example, the Water Framework Directive, a stricter standard that will apply from 2027. Its aim is to better protect nature. Many water authorities are now in the process of optimising their facilities. For the Vechtstromen water authority, we’re working on treatment plants in Goor, Glanerbrug, Hengelo and Oldenzaal. By adding an extra treatment step in the form of a sand or cloth filter, the plants’ effluent will become cleaner. It’s a big task, not only because the extra step needs to be accommodated both hydraulically and physically, but also because we want to create the best possible design in a broader sense. We’re considering, for example, the effects on groups of bats that live nearby. And everything has to be operational within two years.’

Wouter:

‘There’s a lot to do in the water sector, so many good engineers are needed’

Wouter Schrijver is a civil engineer who works on designs for water treatment and drinking water plants and their associated infrastructure. He wants to pass his knowledge on to younger colleagues.

Internship supervisor

‘In addition to modernisation and optimisation due to stricter regulations and new techniques, the water sector also faces an increasing demand for water. There are more and more of us and we’re all using the same amount of water that we always have. That means there’s a lot of work to do in the industry and will be for some time to come. And you need good engineers for that. That’s one of the reasons why I supervise students at Witteveen+Bos. I’ve supervised four interns since I’ve been here. Three of them now work for us. It gives me great satisfaction to see them grow into professionals. Your education is mostly theoretical; in practice things tend to be different and you learn a lot as you go. A good theoretical foundation is important, but the most and the most valuable learning occurs by doing. That’s why I enjoy sharing my knowledge so much.’

Annemiek

‘Project work and scientific research is a fun challenge!’

Ecologist Annemiek Hermans specialises in nature-friendly solutions for offshore wind energy. Understanding the ecological challenges of the energy transition, she considers herself a ‘realistic ecologist’.

‘I grew up partly on Terschelling, we spent holidays on Texel, my husband comes from Ameland, and we met each other on Schiermonnikoog. For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt a connection to the sea. As an ecologist, I gradually became specialised in cartilaginous fish, rays, and sharks. What I find so cool about cartilaginous fish is that they’re perfectly evolved! Millions of years ago, they discovered a recipe for living efficiently in the sea, aided by their ability to perceive both magnetic and electric fields. That’s a unique combination. But this advantage is now working against them, with so much activity on and in the sea for transporting energy. Our changing energy needs are the main cause of this, and habitats, foraging strategies and migration routes are in danger of being disrupted.’

Want to read more of Annemiek’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-annemiek-hermans

‘Keeping waterways navigable is a big challenge

For Lex de Boom, project manager in Witteveen+Bos’s Deltas, Coasts and Rivers business line, there is no shortage of work. But he still finds time each week to work one day for TU Delft. After all, not every question can be answered in his daily work.

‘I was born in the Rotterdam area but grew up in Friesland. That’s where I learned to sail, which I still really enjoy doing. But choosing civil engineering ultimately came down to a process of elimination. It was only during my degree that I found out what most appealed to me: hydraulic engineering. My graduation project focused on flood protection, but afterwards I discovered that I liked port and shipping projects even more. I find the work more dynamic and the lead times are shorter. You also have to take commercial interests into account. A quay wall under construction means no revenue for the terminal operator, so our schedules are often very tight, even though we’re designing technically complex things. I enjoy managing those competing forces.’

Want to read more of Lex’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-lex-de-boom

‘Extending concrete’s lifespan is an effective way to save the environment’

Jeroen Feij, a materials technologist specialising in concrete, wants to contribute to a better world. One way to do that: extend the lifespans of traditional concrete structures.

‘As a child, I was always outside. I would help my father work in the shed, and I enjoyed making things. After high school, I first studied mechanical engineering and then materials science and engineering. I went from steel to concrete, and then stuck with concrete after discovering how versatile it is. Because of its wide range of applications, concrete can break in many different ways. That means you can also keep it whole in many different ways. It’s a world unto itself that I find incredibly appealing. While I was writing my master’s thesis, my father died, and I asked myself: What do I really care about? What do I want to achieve? The answer: I want to make the world a better place than it currently is. Now that I’m a father myself, my motivation to do that has only grown.’

Want to read more of Jeroen’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-jeroen-feij

‘By visiting

projects abroad, I understand the world better’

As an adviser on environmental and social impact assessments and social cost-benefit analyses, Cyntha Nijmeijer looks at the bigger picture. Raising a dyke in Semarang, a city in Indonesia home to millions of people, will provide higher water security, but what effect will it have on people and nature in the surrounding area?

‘I’ve had a broad range of interests ever since I was a kid. Economics, technical subjects, social studies: I liked everything. When searching for a suitable course of study, I stumbled upon a degree called Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management. It concerned the social side of technical projects. That was perfect. As a consultant at Witteveen+Bos, I’m interested in the wider effects of our projects. The plans we make, for example, contribute to water security, (drinking) water supplies, and accessibility, but what impact do they have on people and nature in the surrounding area? We need to know the answer to that question in order to make informed design choices.’

Want to read more of Cyntha’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-cyntha-nijmeijer

+ Houtrib locks: major nautical traffic node in need of renovation

After 50 years of service, two large pound locks and six control locks in the Houtrib lock complex are in need of thorough renovation. Witteveen+Bos is involved in the project’s plan development phase. We are conducting investigations, performing calculations, and drawing up a variation study so that the client, Rijkswaterstaat, can decide on the renovation measures needed to ensure the locks can function for at least another 50 years. Important design aspects include safety and robustness as well as sustainability and future maintenance needs. The planning study will continue until early 2026. The Houtrib locks are located near Lelystad in the Dutch province of Flevoland, on the shipping route between Amsterdam and Lemmer. They form an important traffic node, with 50,000 ships passing through the complex each year. The locks also protect against flooding by discharging excess water from the Markermeer lake into the larger IJsselmeer.

+ Improvements to ring road increase traffic flow in Groningen

On 1 September 2024, Groningen’s new and improved southern ring road was opened. As the city’s main entry point, this road had previously struggled with gridlock resulting from the city’s significant growth. Improvements to the twelve-kilometre-long ring road have now increased traffic flow, accessibility, road safety, and liveability. Witteveen+Bos was involved in this project from the tender phase in 2015, providing designs and advice (e.g. for the road network and various structures) as well as noise analyses and environmental cost indications. Ultimately, more than 225 Witteveen+Bos colleagues worked on this project. One of the biggest challenges was how to approach the Julianaplein motorway junction. The A7 and N7 motorways meet here, originally at a single-level intersection. Over seven years, much hard work was carried out to reconstruct the southern ring road. Now, both Julianaplein and Vrijheidsplein no longer feature single-level intersections. Between Julianaplein and the Europaweg road, the southern ring road was sunken, removing it from view. Traffic from every direction now flows better, improving the accessibility of both the city and the region.

+ Dordrecht traffic bridge gets a facelift

In 2021, when Witteveen+Bos began work for Rijkswaterstaat on the planning phase of the renovation of the Dordrecht traffic bridge, it was one of the infrastructure sector’s first replacement and renovation projects. The double bascule bridge, built in 1939, is being extensively renovated to extend the lifespan of this piece of industrial heritage by at least 30 years. The steel of the truss bridge, the control systems, the installations, the approach spans – almost everything has been extensively inspected and recalculated and is now being renovated or replaced. The renovation will give the bridge a technical upgrade, while the choice to retain the original design’s colour and materials will enhance its heritage status. In other words, not only are the mechanics and functioning of the bridge being renovated; its attractiveness is also being enhanced.

Getting the energy transition moving

To ensure the 2030 climate targets are met, the energy transition is being scaled up both in the Netherlands and beyond. But switching from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources is a challenging puzzle, with factors such as time pressure, scarcity of space, impact on nature, and technical complexity coming together to create a task that demands innovation, entrepreneurship and teamwork. Witteveen+Bos is working to solve this puzzle at different scales by developing new technologies, conducting research, and bringing together knowledge from different disciplines and organisations. We are currently working, for example, on projects for the Netherlands’ high-voltage grid, green hydrogen transportation through the North Sea, and floating solar parks in Indonesia.

North Sea hydrogen infrastructure as foundation for energy transition

The North Sea has a key role to play in the energy transition: over the coming decades, it will become the Netherlands’ largest supplier of wind energy. But our current electricity grid is unable to optimally distribute the large volume of green energy it will produce. That is why Gasunie, on a world-first project, is working on constructing innovative hydrogen infrastructure in the North Sea. Together with Worley, Witteveen+Bos is carrying out various studies for Gasunie to support the project’s design, feasibility and planning.

These activities are part of our HyOne framework agreement with Gasunie. HyOne aims to integrate offshore wind farms with hydrogen infrastructure and end users in the Netherlands. It involves looking at technology, the environment, operation,

and maintenance, as well as the proposed infrastructure’s economic feasibility. Its ultimate goal is to create a sustainable network for the production and transport of green hydrogen.

Pioneering

in a rapidly changing landscape

Political and market ambitions surrounding hydrogen currently outpace (European) legislation and technical (design) standards. This means that innovation is taking place simultaneously with the development of new frameworks and ways of working. To ensure success, an integrated approach is required that also embraces pioneering work and collaboration with stakeholders.

Witteveen+Bos is actively working on developing a strong ecosystem of collaboration partners, as only by sharing knowledge and pooling expertise can this complex puzzle be solved. We are currently involved in five subprojects on HyOne:

- routing and landfall study for offshore hydrogen pipelines; - pre-FEED study for offshore PEM platform; - nature-enhancing design for offshore infrastructure; - study for underwater link concepts; - management and maintenance study.

Three of these subprojects are highlighted below:

Routing and landfall study for offshore hydrogen pipelines

One of the first steps in developing the proposed hydrogen infrastructure is mapping out optimal routes through the North Sea and Wadden Sea. This includes identifying effects on the environment and surroundings to highlight and mitigate any negative impact. Relevant laws and regulations are also being analysed, and an overview is being obtained of the permits required. This study will ultimately provide Gasunie with a basis for decision-making and further development.

Nature-enhancing design for offshore infrastructure What design and construction choices will minimise environmental consequences and create positive impact where possible? This study focuses on the impact of the proposed hydrogen infrastructure on the marine environment. We are investigating opportunities for nature restoration and enhancement in the North Sea and Wadden Sea, evaluating conventional and innovative nearshore installation methods, and analysing safety aspects throughout the infrastructure’s entire life cycle.

Management

and maintenance study

What is the right maintenance and operation philosophy for the proposed hydrogen infrastructure? We are examining the consequences of the infrastructure for maintenance planning and repair interventions, with the study aiming to identify logistical challenges as well as synergies with existing offshore operations. We are also comparing technological and economic scenarios and collecting best practices from throughout the industry to create a robust

management and maintenance framework. In intensive collaboration with Gasunie, this study will provide valuable insights for strategic decision-making.

North Sea as international energy system and multifunctional area

The North Sea has a crucial role to play in the energy transition, with offshore wind and hydrogen production increasingly being linked to one another. At the same time, the North Sea is a valuable natural area, an important shipping route, and a current and future source of economic activity.

Witteveen+Bos is contributing to this challenge on a wide range of projects in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark. On these projects, we are working together with governments, grid operators, contractors, and energy companies to strengthen the energy transition and, together with our partners, build a robust and sustainable international energy system.

Indonesia embraces the power of floating solar

The Cirata floating solar park in Indonesia is the largest of its kind in Southeast Asia. It is the first in a series of parks, all of similar scale, for which Witteveen+Bos is providing civil engineering services from its office in Jakarta.

The Cirata solar park, which floats on the Cirata reservoir in West Java, currently houses 340,000 solar panels that together produce 192 megawatts of green electricity. That is enough for 50,000 households. The park occupies 250 hectares, equal to 350 football fields, of the 6,200 hectares available in the reservoir. A project to expand the park’s capacity to 500 megawatts has now been initiated.

Together with private developers, the national power company in Indonesia, PLN Nusantara Power, is working on utilising solar power to generate green electricity. Solar power is widely available in Indonesia and can help PLN Nusantara Power make the national grid more sustainable. Indonesia aims to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2060.

Accelerating the energy transition by managing technology, data and people

The Dutch energy transition is accelerating. The exponential growth in the supply and demand of green electricity has huge consequences for energy infrastructure. Witteveen+Bos, as a permanent partner of grid operator TenneT, is helping modernise and increase the capacity of the Netherlands’ high-voltage grid.

Our collaboration with TenneT has been organised into two framework agreements. One concerns technical services and engagement and stakeholder management by E-MERGE, the partnership between Witteveen+Bos, Antea Group and Bilfinger Tebodin. The other involves line calculations and was concluded directly with us.

Our approach to this challenge includes the use of multidisciplinary teams, with specific expertise being

added per project or task. Thanks to our broad knowledge network, we can quickly and easily call on experts in fields including ecology, soil and noise. Project teams also always include engagement and stakeholder managers.

Engineering: people’s work

Working together on the future

Every day, together with our clients and collaboration partners, our people provide ingenious solutions to the challenges facing society. The context in which they do this offers ample room for personal development, but it also demands that they be flexible and decisive in dealing with changing circumstances. In 2024, with an energetic and decisive Witteveen+Bos as our motto, 1,578 colleagues from nine countries worked on harnessing and strengthening our collective energy and impact.

A distinctive employer

Last year, we succeeded in independently meeting our recruitment needs. But labour market shortages are increasing, and we are anticipating the longer-term effects of this by strengthening our connections to candidates with different educational backgrounds and types of experience. Prior to the launch of our new website in 2024, a project was established to revise the employee value proposition we offer target groups of potential employees. This led to a series of videos in which employees provided insight into what they do and why they work for Witteveen+Bos. Both the process and the end result typify us: the energy and enthusiasm for our projects provides the context, while the freedom within this context to develop

with trust and support from the organisation offers the personal perspective. Our recruitment tools have since been aligned with our revised employee value proposition, and the effectiveness and mix of these tools have been evaluated. This has put us in a strong position for the future, in which our attention will remain focused on our positioning, on connecting with potential new employees, and on offering attractive employment conditions.

Stimulating work environment

In 2024, we focused heavily on initiatives that support responsible growth from a solid foundation. We took efforts, for example, to ensure that the work environment we offer is

a consistently healthy and universally welcoming one. This kind of environment stimulates interaction and collaboration, which in turn leads to input from different perspectives and the bundling of expertise. By creating such an environment, we ensure that our high-quality and innovative knowledge can effectively be exploited.

Our efforts to give our work environment a boost included investing in the physical facilities at our offices. But we focused above all on working together better, improving the social environment we jointly create in the interest of enthusiasm and health, and increasing the space we give one another to develop on projects and in teams. In one of our business lines, for example, group leaders discussed how to explore dilemmas within teams before moving forward together with a shared perspective. Elsewhere in the company, work was done on creating clearer development pathways and an approach that allows colleagues to more consciously work on their development. A pilot on managing personal energy levels gave managers greater insight and more tools for utilising employees’ strengths better in teams, and many PMCs worked on strengthening connections between employees and transferring knowledge.

Meanwhile, manager-employee pairs across the organisation participated in workshops on raising their awareness of their own (exemplary) behaviour and identifying and discussing both desirable and undesirable conduct by others. We also noted greater interest in reflective conversations and personal leadership.

Two years ago, we focused on tackling pressure at work and reducing psychosocial workload and strain. In 2024, we extended these efforts through our Energetic Employees programme. We were successful in reducing sick leave from 4.4 % to 3.4 %, and this decline is continuing. Critical to our success was finding a healthy balance between sources of energy and possible sources of stress, as was facilitating open conversations between managers, employees, and team members. Our establishment of the Health and WellBeing group within our HR department also maintained focus on these issues and ensured attention from within the organisation for diversity, inclusivity and shared impact (DIS) as well as social safety.

We also investigated employees’ perceptions of psychosocial workload and strain in 2024. This provided valuable insights that we can use to improve the quality

of work we offer employees. Room for improvement exists in how we equip employees for the sometimes demanding context of our industry, as well as in the leadership practices that support these efforts. We are therefore going to work on understanding our employees’ capacity for resilience better and help them increase it. We are also going to help employees and managers make better use of the opportunities employees have to organise their work themselves. The recently completed Leadership Today focal point offers us concrete lessons and guidelines on this based on the company’s own practical experiences. Finally, we will continue working both within our organisation and with our clients on ensuring a physically and socially safe work environment for everyone.

Responsible growth

In our 2023 annual report, we announced our decision to limit employee growth in the coming year. This conscious decision to invest in giving new employees the chance to properly integrate into the company resulted in modest growth of 1.7 % and provided us with a good starting point for 2024. Accordingly, with the help of our new PLUSschool learning management system, we were able to increase the amount of interaction with new colleagues in our onboarding process in 2024 without jeopardising the transfer of practical knowledge. We experienced net employee growth of 8.8 %, which was higher than the 5 % growth we consider normal. This increase was partly due to an increase in the number of challenging projects we worked on, but it was pleasing to note that it was also due to relatively low employee turnover of 9.2 %.

We also note that digitalisation and investing in developing employees’ digital skills have an important role to play in making the responsible growth we desire possible. We initiated a positive trend in strengthening our digital skills in 2024, but additional attention is needed in 2025 to achieve the rate of improvement we desire.

Resilience and development

Working on the complex challenges of today and tomorrow requires our employees to develop and apply their knowledge and experience under constantly changing conditions and in various collaborations. Appropriate leadership is essential to making this possible. Insights from our Leadership Today focal point have shown that leadership at Witteveen+Bos is not only the domain of formal leaders. Rather, it is a type of behaviour that anyone in the organisation can exhibit. We therefore see leadership as a shared responsibility that requires constant self-reflection, learning and development. It also requires that conversations be held which help us understand each other and manage our expectations of one another – not just as leaders but also as employees. This vision is reflected in the characteristics we collectively value in individuals we nominate for management positions, as well as in the reflective conversations regularly held during leadership training programmes.

At Witteveen+Bos, we encourage employees to learn throughout their careers and transfer their knowledge and experience to others. This of course applies to professional knowledge and experience, but we also challenge employees to continue developing personally. We believe that by investing in the learning and development of our people, the organisation as a whole grows and remains agile. Learning by doing in our daily work and learning from and with one another are important principles for us, supplemented by formal learning through training, workshops and courses. By facilitating this mix of learning forms, we allow our employees to create individual learning pathways that suit their desired development path. Employees have the opportunity to map out personalised career pathways based on their individual development wishes and personal strengths. This allows them to partly give form to their own roles and makes us an attractive employer for

people looking to be experts in their field (what we call the ‘professional’ or ‘P’ role), people who derive satisfaction from leading projects and contributing to others’ development (the ‘management’ or ‘M’ role), and those who enjoy working with clients on relevant market issues (the ‘commercial’ or ‘C’ role). Obviously, a combination of these roles is also possible.

external training costs (euros)

1,059,526

(2023: 1,210,383)

Witteveen+Bos and its employees partake in a dynamic process in which they reinforce one another: learning and development occur in mutual agreement and produce synergy. Every employee brings unique perspectives and skills – partly stemming from their environment – and possesses wishes for their development that are fulfilled on projects or within our business operations. This leads to the employee’s development and the growth (in knowledge) of the organisation. The overlap (i.e. synergy) lies in our mutual adaptability and resilience to respond to changing circumstances.

PLUSschool

In 2024, we focused on implementing our recently launched PLUSschool digital learning management system outside the Netherlands and Belgium. We also introduced a more effective structure to the range of learning options available to our employees, improved the user experience, and worked together with employees to gain greater insight into the learning activities they undertake. Learning pathways were established for important company-wide topics (e.g. digitalisation, project management, and leadership), ensuring more progression in expertise on these subjects. We are also employing this learning pathway approach for biodiversity and climate and the broader topic of (personal) leadership.

Talents

Social purpose

‘Applying mathematical knowledge on projects is much more tangible than pure mathematics. Following my studies, I didn’t want to work in ICT – that’s not for me. While studying, I also obtained a minor teaching qualification in mathematics. Education certainly has a social purpose, which was something I considered important when I started looking for work. But my ambition lay in the business world. In my current role as a data specialist, I come into contact with all Witteveen+Bos’s areas of expertise, such as water quality, the energy transition, nature and the environment, and all kinds of projects at sea, in deltas and on land. That diversity appeals to me immensely. I’m constantly being challenged in new ways.’

Is it logical?

Hilliane:

‘I’m constantly asking myself whether it’s logical’

Before joining Witteveen+Bos four years ago as a data specialist, Hillianne de Jonge studied applied mathematics and obtained a master’s degree in operations research. Her affinity with applied mathematical knowledge has proved useful on a wide range of projects.

‘You learn something on every project, and I exploit that knowledge on future assignments. I’ve been working for four years now as a data specialist. Currently, our team totals twelve colleagues. At first, I was given a task and I carried it out. But now I keep an overview of the project’s context and am quicker to understand what works and what doesn’t. In this digital age, the amount of data is growing exponentially. We’re really interested in all that data, but it’s also important to regularly zoom out, look at the bigger picture, and check whether the data actually helps answer project questions. Clients and colleagues need to obtain insights from data analysis and be able to do something with the information. That’s why I’m constantly asking myself whether what we’re doing is logical. ‘Is it logical?’ – a typical mathematician’s question!’

Data prophet

‘One project might be about nitrous oxide in wastewater treatment plants. On another, I’ll be working with colleagues on the impact of boat traffic on a waterway’s banks and the plants that grow there. On all these projects, we collect large amounts of raw data. We often check its quality first using the ‘data prophet’, a model we developed that checks time series for anomalous and missing data. We can then make reports, models or dashboards to help clients obtain insights into the data, or we can answer questions using validated, useful information.’

Charlotte

‘As a project manager, I’m more of a generalist than a specialist’

Charlotte Mekel is a civil engineer who works on drinking and process water. For a long time, she was a specialist. But then she wanted to take a new step in her career. And she got the chance.

‘At school, I liked geography: the weather, the earth, how tectonic plates move over each other. My sister reminded me the other day that, when I was young, I wanted to be a weather girl. I didn’t end up studying geography, though, instead choosing civil engineering. But during my master’s, I kind of went back to geography by focusing on water. Among other things, I learned a lot about hydraulics. I use that knowledge now at Witteveen+Bos on drinking and process water projects. Water is a great subject, because you’re constantly solving puzzles and the relevance for society is big. After all, it’s one of life’s basic needs. But most people don’t realise how much organisation it requires, nor how well organised it is in the Netherlands.’

Want to read more of Charlotte’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-charlotte-mekel

‘Helping colleagues develop gives me energy’

For a long time, Apostolos Bougioukos thought he was happy just performing difficult calculations on the computer. But as a group leader and project manager, he has discovered another side to himself, even if he will never be a proper salesperson.

‘I come from a small village to the north of Athens. As a child, I was curious and would take apart my toys. How does this move? What makes this jump? Maths and physics were my favourite subjects at school. I also regularly helped out in my parents’ bakery. That taught me that hard work can be very rewarding. But I knew the bakery wasn’t for me: I would never be able to apply my passion for maths and physics there. It was a logical step, therefore, to study civil engineering. After I graduated, a financial crisis in Greece meant that there weren’t many opportunities for young engineers in the country. So I decided to go to the Netherlands and do a master’s at TU Delft. Many young Greeks go abroad. There’s even a term for it: brain drain.’

Want to read more of Apostolos’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-apostolos-bougioukos

‘The goal: give every colleague or visitor the same experience’

As a group leader in the Facility Management department, Merith van Haag-Zwiers has the important task of ensuring the same level of service is offered at every Witteveen+Bos office.

‘I like doing varied work, but I’ve been working for one employer for sixteen years now. How is that possible? At Witteveen+Bos, I’m regularly faced with new challenges. First for fourteen years in the HR department, and now for two years in Facility Management. Process optimisation is what I enjoy doing most, so Facility Management is the perfect place for me. This year, we’ve started further standardising our services and making them more visible. This includes redetermining who the department’s clients are and what specific needs they have. As group leader of the Contracts & Services group, I’m taking the lead in this process.’

Want to read more of Merith’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-merith-van-haag-zwiers

‘I see myself as a bridge builder, literally and figuratively’

Robin Christofi studied civil engineering and social sciences in the United Kingdom. Now he leads a multicultural team of digital designers at Witteveen+Bos in Belgium. He is enthusiastic about BIM technology not only for its technical advantages, but also because it brings people together.

‘I’ve been working at Witteveen+Bos for nine years now. I grew up in Cyprus with a Cypriot father and a Dutch mother. I studied in the UK, which was a logical choice considering the colonial connection. English is the second language in Cyprus. Later, I lived and worked in both Spain and the UK. I feel most comfortable when I’m surrounded by different cultures. Now I live in Belgium because this is where Europe comes together. That’s certainly true of Brussels, where I first lived, but Antwerp too.’

Want to read more of Robin’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-robin-christofi

Merith

Sustainable business operations

On the path to climate neutrality

Providing optimal support and advice in a dynamic environment with increasing regulatory pressure and risks demands adaptive business operations that utilise integrated solutions and exploit data-driven insights on complex issues. We are optimising the services of our business operations while also taking steps towards climate neutrality, further developing our data foundation, and facilitating collaboration with clients and collaboration partners.

Climate-neutral business operations by 2030

Witteveen+Bos aims to have climate-neutral internal business operations by 2030. Last year, we experienced employee growth of 8.8 %, and we estimate to have emitted 2 % more CO 2 worldwide than in 2023. This means a reduction in average emissions per employee, even if our goal of achieving a slight decrease in total emissions was unfortunately not achieved. Total emissions were reduced, however, in the areas of premises, mobility and procurement.

Sustainable premises

In 2024, we further developed our roadmap for making our premises portfolio more sustainable. At our rented locations, we discussed options for increasing sustainability with landlords, including gas-free heating and smarter management of electricity consumption. We also implemented an energy monitoring system at our head office to gather insights into how we currently use these premises. We use 100 % Dutch wind and solar energy at our Dutch offices, and we encourage landlords to do the same. This is in line with our philosophy of first opting for reduction and increased sustainability before choosing to offset.

Sustainable mobility

Last year, our pilot for shared electric mobility was made more widely available. We are pleased to see that employees are more often choosing a sustainable mode of transport to travel. We also phased out the last non-electric pool car in our fleet in 2024, and we replaced a large proportion of our petrol-powered pool cars with electric cars. These would all have been replaced if not for delivery delays. Finally, we made preparations to roll out Mobility as a Service in the Netherlands in 2025. This will help us meet the new national requirement to report on the work-related mobility movements of individuals.

Sustainable procurement

In 2024, we adopted a sustainable procurement policy for purchases related to our internal business operations. By adopting this policy, we aim to increasingly factor circularity impact and carbon emissions into the total cost of ownership of the products and services we buy. We are also offering fewer (and less frequently) catering products with high carbon emissions, replacing them with lower-emission alternatives. We have replaced 50 % of our teas with a Dutch alternative that contributes to restoring biodiversity by

using teas from local and indigenous crops. And we have further reduced our paper consumption by offering our employee magazine in digital form. Over 400 colleagues have already switched to the digital version.

Optimising internal services

User-centred

To identify possible improvements to our business functions’ internal services, in 2024 we investigated a new internal service delivery model. This involved mapping out the processes that comprise our business operations. Optimising these processes will allow us to act adaptively, put our internal client’s needs first, and better facilitate talent development in our business functions. Wherever possible, these processes are being digitalised and automated to create opportunities for innovation. This approach is helping us learn to work together – and in the right teams – on adopting an integrated approach to processes, optimising the systems we use, and reducing actions that do not add value while increasing those that do.

Data-driven working

The foundation of our efforts in digitalisation was further strengthened last year. We increased our commitment to data-driven working by adopting a new ICT vision and data policy as well as the first version of a data platform. We also established a vision and strategy on AI and are conducting pilots aimed at exploiting the potential of AI in a responsible way. The organisation now works, for example, with ChatWBT, a secure in-house alternative to ChatGPT. For the time being, our development of new AI tooling is focusing on internal processes; later, it will be scaled up for use with external services too.

Information security and cybersecurity

The audit for our ISO 27001 certification in 2024 showed continuous improvement. We are increasing the level of digital safety awareness among our colleagues through regular communication and targeted training.

Led by our new chief information and security officer, we are also working on further developing our information security policy. Finally, we are preparing ourselves for the imminent implementation of the NIS2 Directive in the Netherlands, the law intended to ensure the digital and economic resilience of European member states.

Facilitating a network for collaboration and innovation

Last year, we created and implemented a new vision for our premises in the Netherlands and Belgium, which sets out the course we will follow in the coming years. We are opting for office locations closer to our current and future talents, and we want our premises to support our sustainability ambitions. In the Netherlands, our campus offices have obtained prominence, and we are combining our sustainability ambitions with a desire to ensure proximity to employees. In Belgium, the decision was made to focus on Leuven and Ghent as cities in which to expand our office capacity.

We put our premises vision into practice in 2024 by moving our EnISSA measurement service to a modern, professional facility in Vilvoorde, Belgium; in Deventer, by developing a new location that houses meeting rooms, our odour lab and measurement activities, and the De Kien city campus; and in Eindhoven, by opening a new campus office with ‘Materials of the Future’ as its theme. This campus office will help us connect with new talent graduating from Eindhoven University of Technology and Fontys University of Applied Sciences. It will also allow us to contribute to knowledge development and collaboration on the development and application of new, sustainable building materials. Internationally, we moved to a new, sustainable office in Latvia; we made preparations for the modernisation of our office in Dubai, which has now been in use for ten years; and in Jakarta, we prepared for the expansion of our office on to another floor in the same building.

Safe working environment

In 2024, a start was made on developing a global health and safety policy, whose aim is to positively influence attitudes and behaviour related to safety, health and well-being.

Internal audits and (workspace) inspections by managers were again carried out last year. These audits and inspections generate a good picture of the working conditions of employees as well as their level of safety awareness. Partly as a result of these efforts, we were successfully recertified for SCC** and we retained our step 4 certification on the Safety Culture Ladder. Audits for our quality management system (ISO 9001) and our environmental management (ISO 14001) also revealed no significant deviations from the standard.

Generally speaking, we are safety-conscious, and we reported roughly the same number of unsafe situations in 2024 as in previous years. In response to these reports, measures were implemented and learning points shared to prevent recurrence. The reports were very diverse, from confused people approaching reception to unsafe situations on the road and condensation dripping close to a socket. Despite extensive prevention measures, accidents can of course still happen. Seventeen accidents were recorded last year – an increased number of which resulted in short periods of sick leave – with injuries, fortunately, being generally limited. Notable was the number of bicycle accidents which occurred during employees’ commute (five of the seventeen total reported accidents).

Working with integrity and engagement

At Witteveen+Bos, we strive to work for all our stakeholders with integrity and engagement. Our responsibilities and approach to working are set out in our company code, which all employees abide by worldwide. We support compliance with this code through training, dilemma sessions, and assessments. Our company code is partly based on the

OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the ten principles of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) on human rights, labour rights, the environment, and anticorruption. We are committed to human rights being upheld throughout the supply chain. Accordingly, we ensure a safe and fair working environment free of discrimination, and we only want to work with suppliers that support fair labour practices.

Preparations for reporting on ESG

We are attaching increasingly more value to non-financial data – such as ESG (environmental, social and governance) criteria – as strategic information for stakeholders. The European Union considers the reporting of non-financial information equally as important as financial reporting, as evidenced by the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). We will comply with this directive for the 2025 financial year, but we have already been producing sustainability reports and performing materiality analyses for years now. We have also developed our own SDG Impact Tool. In 2024, we conducted a double materiality assessment to identify the most important material topics for our company. In short, we have ensured that the organisation and data sources are in place which will allow us to reliably report on ESG in 2025.

2,433

business travel and commuting by public transport (km)

7,813,046

(2023: 7,677,541)

business travel

6,809,056 (2023: 6,496,968)

commuting 1,003,990

(2023: 134,526) BUSINESS OPERATIONS KEY FIGURES

business travel by private car (km)

(2023: 1,189,573) district heating (hot/cold water in gigajoules) (2023: 1,822)

2,806,270

(2023: 2,249,187) business travel by company car (km)

685,616

(2023: 657,838) business travel by company car (l)

95,683

(2023: 137,674) business travel by company car (kWh)

2,076

16

2,395 gas consumption in office buildings (m 3 )

(2023: 153,088)

2,591,616 air travel (km)

195,308

(2023: 3,247,440) electricity consumption (kWh)

3,688 commuting by private car (km) (2023: 1,424,662) commuting by company car (l) (2023: 10,280)

1,706,839

(2023: 1,710,722) paper use (kg) (2023: 4,290)

1,557,164

3,466

Talents

Pioneering village

‘In terms of the built environment, I grew up in a pioneering village. Zeewolde was designed for peaceful living, which made it a nice place to grow up in. But it’s also remote. You need a car to get anywhere. Because of this fact, I’m now critical of this type of urban design. Residential centres like Zeewolde create a huge need for mobility. Almost everyone who lives there works somewhere else, and many households have two cars. In the Netherlands, we’re addicted to mobility.’

Guest lecturer

‘After studying spatial planning, I combined working at Witteveen+Bos with a degree in urban design at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam. Several colleagues have since done the same. Now I’m a guest lecturer on urban design at Fontys University of Applied Sciences. I supervise students on an eleven-week design assignment. I try to give them guidelines on how to get from an idea to a design. An important and sometimes underappreciated aspect is what you want to achieve with your design. What is the vision behind your design choices? If you have a well-thought-out vision, you’re better able to convince the client. That’s just as important as the design itself.

Tom:

‘We’re

addicted to mobility’

As an urban designer, Tom Lodder strives for compact, green, mixed living environments. So that residents can get around on foot or by bike, and dependency on cars is greatly reduced.

As a student, I was encouraged to think about what fascinated me. I quickly realised that the car is a defining factor in every urban design. Children won’t play in streets filled with cars, for example. At Witteveen+Bos, we apply the STOMP principle. This means that, in our designs, we first provide space for walking and cycling. After that, we consider public transport, and lastly we think about Mobility as a Service and private cars.’

Denser and greener

‘One way to reduce private car use is to ensure proximity and density. More facilities nearby and shorter distances mean you’re more likely to go on foot or by bike. Our urban design plan for Breda’s railway zone, for example, focuses on green, car-free spaces that encourage playing and meeting. The child’s perspective has a central role: parking spaces are clustered at a distance and kept out of sight. Another recent example is the urban design vision and lay-out plan for the Duivendrecht train station. To create high-quality green entrance and waiting areas, we moved the cars outside. This resulted in an attractive ground-level entrance that will accommodate the many pedestrians and cyclists expected from the De Nieuwe Kern development.’

‘Entrepreneurship is also about looking after yourself’

José Reinaardus has been a HR adviser at Witteveen+Bos for ten years. Nowadays, she devotes her time to the topic of well-being. Because she stopped to ask herself what she really wanted.

‘I grew up in an entrepreneurial family: work never stopped, no wasn’t an option, and the customer always had to be kept happy. There’s nothing wrong with working hard, but over the course of my career I’ve learned that well-being is a prerequisite for hard work. This starts with knowing yourself well: What are my values? Why do I do what I do? And why does it matter to others? This process was sped up incredibly for me when our son Guus became very sick three years ago. He was only three and was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Intensive chemotherapy treatment followed. I wanted to be there for him, and Witteveen+Bos gave me all the time I needed. It all went positively and Guus is doing well now. When I was ready to get back to work, they asked me: ‘José, what do you want?’. My answer to that question was to focus on wellbeing.’

Want to read more of José’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-jose-reinaardus

Arjan

‘A busy construction site demands extra alertness’

According to health, safety and environmental adviser Arjan van Kammen, how people work together plays a large part in maintaining safety on project sites. The dynamics of these locations and challenging new projects ensure that this experienced consultant remains alert.

‘I’ve been working at Witteveen+Bos for 32 years. After studying environmental chemistry, I started working as an adviser on soil contamination. Safety issues played an important role in that too. I have an affinity for health and safety, so I undertook an advanced safety course. Now, I’m the specialist you need for everything related to working safely in contaminated soil. My final thesis was on safe underground construction, and in 2008 I became involved as a safety adviser in the construction of Amsterdam’s North-South Line. Since 2016, I’ve also worked on the construction of the Oosterweel Link in Antwerp. These are both impressive tunnel projects on which my knowledge of soil compositions and chemistry has also come in handy.’

Want to read more of Arjan’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-arjan-van-kammen

‘You can’t only serve nature if you also want to realise the energy transition’

Consultant Just van der Endt is group leader of the Marine and Estuarine Ecology group at Witteveen+Bos. Together with the other members of his team, he works on reducing the environmental impact of projects at sea and on the coast. Just and his colleagues also identify opportunities to restore and promote nature.

‘As a marine ecologist, I’m interested in everything that lives in salt water – at sea, along the coast, and on mudflats and salt marshes. When I applied for a job at Witteveen+Bos over five years ago, I began my application letter by saying that we’re on the verge of treating the North Sea in a drastically different way. I want to make a positive contribution to that. To meet our climate targets, we need to generate green energy at sea – through wind farms and, in the future, through developments such as offshore solar panels and hydrogen production. I’m an ecologist and I want to protect the natural world, but I also work on projects that put a strain on nature. That creates an area of tension.’

Want to read more of Just’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-just-van-der-endt

‘I strive to ensure that all colleagues handle data securely’

As chief information security officer, Geert Koster is responsible for data security. He keeps colleagues, clients and himself alert by constantly asking the critical question: ‘Why?’.

‘Security and convenience often clash. To secure your system, you’ll probably have to sacrifice convenience. Passwords are a good example. Passwords that are difficult and complex and also have to be changed regularly aren’t convenient. But simple passwords aren’t always secure, so you have to find a balance. At Witteveen+Bos, there’s also a link between security and innovation. Before using artificial intelligence to analyse large amounts of data, for example, you need to think critically about who can access the information and how secure that is. If you want to get more out of data by analysing it, then there has to be someone who asks: ‘What will this mean for security?’. I strive to ensure that all Witteveen+Bos colleagues handle information securely.’

Want to read more of Geert’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-geert-koster

Integration as sustainable foundation for liveable cities

Nowhere is the competition for space as intense as in urban environments. Not only do the housing challenge and energy transition require space, but so do the tasks of improving liveability and strengthening biodiversity. The complexity this entails means that choices need to be carefully considered. We believe that urban liveability and mobility can only be sustainably given shape with an integrated approach. Our collaboration with the municipalities of Haarlem and Zandvoort in a long-term framework agreement is a good example of this, as is our participation in Team RailXpert on developing the train transport of the future, or our ambition to replace car travel with walking and cycling.

Integrated approach to public transport of the future

Stimulating people to travel by public transport is an important component of the mobility transition, in which optimising the railway network plays an important role. Witteveen+Bos and its partners are investigating the most sustainable combination of liveability and effi ciency for two planned train stations: the new Groningen Suikerzijde and the relocated Hilversum Sportpark.

On both projects, we are envisioning the needs of the various stakeholders. This is an extremely effective means of appreciating the broader context of area developments, especially useful for integrating the needs and wishes of the different people and parties involved. Both projects are also illustrative of current times, with infrastructure focusing on pedestrians, cyclists and public transport.

Bijlmer ArenA and Duivendrecht: public transport for future centres of growth

In the Randstad, the need for housing versus restrictions on space leads to a complicated puzzle. To meet expected demand, the Bijlmer residential district and the area between the Bijlmer ArenA and Amsterdam Amstel train stations have been designated as future centres of growth. Witteveen+Bos is working on transforming the Bijlmer Arena and Duivendrecht train stations in anticipation of at least 17,000 new homes.

The envisioned residential developments will feature reduced parking opportunities. This means less room for cars and more for houses and living space. The two stations therefore represent an important mobility asset for these developments. Witteveen+Bos is working on making travelling by public transport an appealing option for the new residents, combining it with efforts to improve liveability and stimulate biodiversity.

Green mobility: together on the path to STOMP

Increasingly more provinces and municipalities are proactively getting involved in the mobility transition. This has seen the traditional pyramid become inverted, with walking, cycling and public transport now the most important mobility modes. Last year, Witteveen+Bos further increased its role in this process through policy and strategic advice, designs, project and stakeholder management, and works supervision.

In prioritising sustainable mobility in area development, a frequently employed principle is STOMP. In Dutch, this stands for walking, cycling, public transport, Mobility as a Service (an integrated platform for various forms of shared mobility), and private cars. The principle states that, in area development, cars should be seen as guests and infrastructure should be explicitly designed to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists. This is the reverse of traditional thinking. In applying it, we almost always incorporate two other, general principles: urban greenery and climate resilience, both of which stem from designing with nature.

Framework agreements: realising ambitions through close collaboration

Since the inception of the Public Procurement Act in 2012, an increasing number of framework agreements have been concluded between government authorities and contractors. Witteveen+Bos has had a framework agreement for over eight years now with the municipalities of Haarlem and Zandvoort. The notable conclusion: this form of collaboration provides a solid foundation for liveable municipalities.

The long-term nature of a framework agreement means that the classic client-contractor relationship makes way for a partnership in which depth is created. This reinforces learning capacity, collaboration and synergy at both policy and human levels.

Witteveen+Bos has already completed dozens of projects together with the municipalities of Haarlem and Zandvoort. On each one, focal points related to going green, climate robustness, liveability, sustainability, and green mobility have been incorporated with increasing effectiveness, with experiences on each project contributing to improved results on the next.

Economic value

Financial basis

Witteveen+Bos aims to achieve healthy financial results. These allow us to invest in innovation, digitalisation, making our business operations more sustainable, and developing our people. A sound financial basis is also essential for preserving our ownership structure and continuing to create value for stakeholders in the long term.

revenue in thousands of euros

198,996

(2023: 176,970)

Healthy results

174,701

EBITDA in thousands of euros (2023: 154,503)

Financially, 2024 began slowly: up until the summer, results were below budget. In the second half of the year, however, this deficit was more than made up for by improving markets, a declining rate of sick leave, and fantastic employee growth. In 2024, our total revenue was EUR 199.0 million, of which EUR 174.7 million was own revenue. This total revenue was more than 12 % higher than in the preceding year. Our net result in 2024 was EUR 23.3 million, making our net profit margin relative to total revenue 11.7 %. In 2023, this was 10.3 %. After reversing a negative trend in our chargeable score in 2023, last year we again achieved a higher chargeable score than in preceding years. We showed ourselves to be capable of quickly deploying new employees on projects, with significantly improved market conditions contributing positively to this. A side effect of this positive development,

net result in thousands of euros (2023: 18,255)

23,281

however, was felt in our work in progress. Our balance of projects in progress increased more sharply than our revenue. Staying on top of working capital therefore remains a point of attention for the organisation, including through timely invoicing throughout the year. For more detailed financial information, see the board of directors’ report.

Looking ahead to 2025

In light of the various uncertainties at home and abroad, we will continue to operate with caution in the coming years. In 2025, we will focus on retaining long-term economic value by remaining adaptive while ensuring productivity and cost control. The organic growth of our company is expected to continue; in combination with inflation, this is expected to result in a further increase in revenue in 2025.

Consolidated balance sheet (before profit appropriation)

Instructions for the reader

This summarised annual financial statement is a condensed version of Witteveen+Bos N.V.’s 2024 consolidated annual financial statement. It does not include all the information provided in the consolidated statement, and it should be read in conjunction with that more expansive document and the accounting policies it outlines and explanatory notes it provides. Witteveen+Bos N.V.’s 2024 consolidated annual financial statement can be obtained from the company.

Principles for preparing consolidated balance sheet, profit and loss account, and other financial statements

Witteveen+Bos N.V.’s 2024 consolidated annual financial statement, from which this summarised statement is derived, was prepared in accordance with Title 2.9 (Book 2) of the Dutch Civil Code.

(all amounts in thousands of euros)

Consolidated profit and loss account

Consolidated cash flow statement

(all amounts in thousands of euros)

Independent auditors report

To the supervisory board and board of directors of Witteveen+Bos N.V.

Our opinion

The summary financial statements 2024 (hereafter: ‘the summary financial statements’) of Witteveen+Bos N.V. based in Deventer is derived from the audited financial statements 2024 of Witteveen+Bos N.V.

In our opinion the enclosed summary financial statements are consistent, in all material respects, with the audited financial statements 2024 of Witteveen+Bos N.V. on the basis described in the disclosures.

The summary financial statements consist of:

1. The consolidated balance sheet as per 31 December 2024.

2. Consolidated profit and loss over 2024.

3. Consolidated cash flow statement for the year 2024.

Summary financial statements

The summary financial statements do not contain all the disclosures required by Dutch law, Title 9 Book 2. Reading the summarised annual results and our report thereon, therefore, is not a substitute for reading the audited financial statements of Witteveen+Bos N.V. over 2024 and our auditor’s report dated 19 March 2025.

The audited annual accounts and our corresponding audit opinion

We expressed an unmodified audit opinion on the audited financial statements 2024 of Witteveen+Bos N.V. in our auditor’s report of 19 March 2025.

The board of directors’ and supervisory boards’ responsibilities for the summary financial statements

The board of directors is responsible for the preparation of the summarised annual results on the basis as described in the disclosures. The supervisory board is responsible for overseeing the company’s financial reporting process.

Our responsibilities

Our responsibility is to express an opinion on whether summarised annual results are consistent, in all material respects, with the audited financial statements based on our procedures, which we conducted in accordance with Dutch law, including the Dutch Standard 810 ‘Assignments to Report on Summary Annual Accounts’.

Utrecht, 19 March 2025

Deloitte Accountants B.V.

Signed on the original: S. Bakker

Financial health

Primarily as a result of issuing shares worth EUR 1.8 million in 2024 and an increased net result, our solvency ratio at year end rose from 44.7 % to 46.4 %. Our current ratio also increased from 1.69 to 1.76. Although this is essentially a positive development, it should be noted that this is mainly due to a higher balance of projects in progress and only partly to an increase in receivables and liquid assets. The challenge for us is to reduce this balance of projects in progress. Nevertheless, these ratios show that Witteveen+Bos was well positioned in terms of liquidity at year end.

solvency as a percentage

net working capital in thousands of euros

30,471

(2023: 44.7 %)

(2023: 24,737)

Participation system

net profit margin as a percentage (2023: 10.3 %) 11.7 %

Witteveen+Bos’s shares have been in its employees’ hands since 1992. Our participation system helps us fulfil our mission, stimulates entrepreneurship, increases engagement, and contributes to ensuring the long-term existence of Witteveen+Bos. For a healthy participation system now and in the future, it is important that enough shares are available for new participants and sufficient room exists for new partners. This is why the system has grown significantly in its more-than-30-year existence. As at 1 July 2024, the company was owned by 877 participants (who held 18.7 % of total shares), 127 partners (27.3 %), 25 premium partners (16.2 %), and 21 senior partners (37.8 %).

Talents

Optimised energy systems

‘For my masters in sustainable energy technology and mechanical engineering, I did my graduation project at Witteveen+Bos. I investigated uncertainty in the optimisation of renewable energy systems. What is the ideal number of solar panels? How does that depend on the amount of wind energy generated? Which batteries and storage systems are also required? The uncertainty of future prices results in trade-offs between different techniques. I included these considerations and others in thousands of different scenarios which were calculated for optimisation. That produced hundreds of gigabytes of data. I then used machine learning technology to turn these into robust insights. We now use similar optimisation models in our consulting work for clients.’

Simple technology, complex execution

‘Technically speaking, the energy transition isn’t complicated. But regulations, financing, and restrictions on space make it complex. The different layers of decision-making at municipal, provincial and national levels do too. As a result, the creation of a coherent energy system is constantly under pressure. Policy choices in one place can have farreaching consequences elsewhere. Large industries need to become more sustainable, but they can’t do this because the grid infrastructure needed to exploit electricity from large offshore wind farms is lacking. These are major industries of huge economic importance. I try to help policymakers and industry parties make informed choices. It’s great to be able to contribute to this using custom solutions.’

Seth:

‘Using AI to help experts perform their magic’

Energy transition adviser and AI ambassador Seth van Wieringen wants to make the impossible possible. Both at Witteveen+Bos and elsewhere. By exploiting technology to tackle complex challenges. But not before he has explored the processes, the core of the problem, and above all the work and wishes of the experts.

Lazy engineer with a passion for digitalisation

‘I’m a lazy engineer: if I can let a computer do something, I will. I also have a passion for the digital transition. These elements come together nicely in my role as ambassador in the AI Nexus working group. At Witteveen+Bos, we’re serious about digitalisation, with our Information Management and Digital Support department leading the company’s efforts.

As a department and working group, we support domain experts at the organisation by developing AI applications that speed up or automate repetitive tasks. This allows the experts to spend more time performing their magic: creating smart designs, solutions and recommendations. If we succeed – for example, by creating a tool for MEAT documents or EIAs –then I’m very happy! To make AI work for you, it’s important to understand the processes, the core of the problem, and the work and wishes of the people involved. Collaborating with experts and learning from their extensive specialist knowledge is one of the aspects of my job I most value.’

‘Stakeholder participation demands and deserves a custom approach’

As a project and engagement and stakeholder manager, Hilke van Strijp combines engineering knowledge with management skills. The large impact of spatial projects on our living environment demands that the interests of all stakeholders be properly taken into account. According to Hilke, this is a crucial prerequisite for integrated and widely supported decision-making.

‘The Netherlands is made up of lots of different small areas in which all sorts of things need to happen and various stakeholders exist. Housing, work, mobility, nature, water – you name it. My main concern is ensuring integration and the involvement of stakeholders in design and planning processes for the reconstruction of infrastructure such as roads and dykes. As well as collaborating with government bodies, this involves facilitating the involvement of residents, nature and environmental organisations, entrepreneurs, interest groups, landowners, and other stakeholders. I oversee the participation of all these parties and ensure their input regarding interests and desires is integrated into the project’s further development. Usually, conflicting interests exist in these small areas. That makes it more or less impossible to please everybody. But it is possible to give everyone the chance to be heard and to foster understanding for choices made in the interest of the common good.’

Want to read more of Hilke’s whole story? Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-hilke-van-strijp-harms

‘I

enjoy sharing my enthusiasm for electrical engineering’

Wytze Jorritsma, group leader of the Electrical Engineering and Process Automation group, works with water and electricity. Not exactly two things that go together. But without electrical engineering, all water systems would come to a standstill. So his team comes up with creative designs to ensure these installations work perfectly.

‘My team members and I work on projects involving water and low-voltage electricity. That usually means process automation and electrical engineering for water treatment installations and drinking water supplies. In 1993, after studying electrical engineering, information technology and industrial engineering, I started working at a treatment authority. Today they’re called water authorities. That’s where my love for water began. In 1999, I joined Witteveen+Bos in the company’s Energy, Water and Environment sector. Until 2013, I worked on process automation, and since then I’ve led a team that makes electrical engineering designs, primarily for wastewater and drinking water treatment plants. These designs cover the entire electrical installation, from energy supply and process automation to the lighting and security of buildings and other locations.’

Want to read more of Wytze’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-wytze-jorritsma

Hilke

Wytze

‘Clear and measurable requirements avoid discussion’

Lonneke Cheung has worked as a contract manager at Witteveen+Bos for around ten years. For a long time she did this on a variety of projects, but nowadays she is kept busy by a complex and ambitious project in Belgium: the preparation and implementation of a contract to build a tunnel underneath the Albert Canal in Antwerp.

‘While studying building engineering and architecture at TU Delft, I quickly realised that architecture was too vague and subjective for me. But I completed my degree and followed it up with a second master’s in construction management. That really suited me. I like clear structures and I’m very precise. So I chose to major in contract management and now I’m a contract manager. Together with the project manager and those responsible for engineering, community and environment, and project control, I draw up the invitation to tender. This details exactly what needs to be built. A contract is a combination of the invitation to tender and the accepted tender. I make sure a clear tendering procedure takes place so that, for each project, we choose the contractor with the right expertise who will do what is stipulated in the contract. This is coupled with clear and measurable requirements that can’t be misinterpreted, leaving no room for discussion.’

Want to read more of Lonneke’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-lonneke-cheung

Johan

‘I’m a financial controller but I mainly work on processes’

In the two years that financial controller Johan Conradie has worked at Witteveen+Bos, the South African has learned a lot about Europe, the Netherlands, and his employer. By mapping out various work processes, he contributes to increasing efficiency and quality.

‘I work in the Business Processes and IT group, part of the Finance department. When I left South Africa two years ago to work at Witteveen+Bos in the Netherlands, my main task was identifying how processes were organised. Processes are the central element of every company. I enjoy performing analyses to identify trends and reveal areas for improvement. My strength lies in recognising patterns, understanding how different elements are related to one another, and translating those insights into concrete improvements. My role also gives me the opportunity to collaborate in different teams, learn from colleagues, and make a genuine impact!’

Want to read more of Johan’s whole story?

Read it at www.witteveenbos.com/stories/employee-portrait-johan-conradie

Lonneke

Look ahead

Our place in the society of the future

We go into 2025 with optimism. We are well positioned in all the markets we target and are prepared for the challenges they present. But to remain successful and relevant in the future, we believe that our organisation needs to constantly adjust, adapt and modernise. And it is precisely when things are going well that opportunities to do this exist. To capitalise on these opportunities, a foundation of firm leadership and a carefully considered strategy are essential. We laid this foundation in 2024 by establishing a clear strategic course for our company: ‘to be a reliable, expert and engaged partner in integrated, ingenious solutions for biosphere, society and economy’. In 2025, we will use this foundation to continue building a robust and agile Witteveen+Bos.

The current pressure on space, nature and biodiversity, together with an increasing scarcity of raw materials and energy, has seen a growth in the worldwide demand for ingenious solutions in the short, middle and long term. As a result, the possibilities for our professionals are many. But in the complex and dynamic context in which we operate, it is important to establish company-wide frameworks that help us achieve the right balance between effectiveness and efficiency, and between autonomous decision-making and increased synergy.

As well as this, the organic growth our company has experienced in recent years is expected to continue steadily. For these reasons, in 2024 we took the first steps in developing a refined strategic direction with an accompanying governance model. This outlines how we want to increase the effectiveness of our decision-making, manage risks, deal with labour market shortages, and remain flexible and adaptive in our business operations. It gives us direction and inspiration for the future as we continue focusing on positively impacting society and achieving healthy financial returns.

Over the next five years, we want to deploy our knowledge, products and services in a more targeted way. We want to concentrate on the tasks in which our added value for society and our own financial returns are the greatest. These tasks fall within the six focus areas identified in our 2024 double materiality analysis (see page 15). The clear course

that this results in will provide direction for and ensure a focus on knowledge development and innovation, which will in turn increase our impact on biosphere, society and economy. By bringing together knowledge development and innovation on a central investment agenda, we will avoid fragmentation and increase our effectiveness.

Governance model

In order to implement our refined strategy and effectively manage the organisation, we are introducing a new governance model. This new model creates room for (international) growth and puts us in a better tactical-strategic position to anticipate major external developments and company-wide challenges. An important aspect of this new model is that it makes a shared process of judgement from various perspectives possible at the highest level of the company. It does this by combining two statutory directors with six nominal directors. These directors are: the managing director, the director of operations, the director of innovation and transformation (DIT), the four business line directors, and the director of our Belgian entity.

In closing

Uncertainty surrounding current economic and political conditions and their longer-term implications persists. But with the solid foundation our refined course provides for the years ahead, we are confident and optimistic that we can continue contributing to valuable solutions for biosphere, economy and society.

Colophon

Editorial team

Witteveen+Bos

Concept and design

Houdbaar

Images

Witteveen+Bos

Viorica Cernica

Cynthia Boll

Fonger de Vlas

DMP

Shutterstock

Rijkswaterstaat image archive

Thanks to all our collaboration partners, clients, and colleagues

Witteveen+Bos N.V.

Leeuwenbrug 8

Postbus 233

7400 AE Deventer

The Netherlands +31 570 69 79 11 info@witteveenbos.com www.witteveenbos.com