‘We reward our suppliers and work together to take steps towards sustainability’

‘Absolutely. Regarding climate, we have, for instance, made progress in the area of carbon emissions caused by our use of electricity to run our plants and installations and light our offices. In the coming years, we will purchase 250 gigawatt-hours of electricity generated by wind turbines installed in the Netherlands, for example. That represents some 25% of our total power consumption. We also consider energy efficiency when sourcing large new plants or installations. While these are sometimes more expensive to buy, in the long run you benefit from lower carbon emissions and lower energy costs. Additionally, climate is part of the strategic objectives in the contracts for Works and Engineering in Strategic Partnerships (WESP). Together with contractors, we are working towards having a zero-emission construction site, within the framework of the national Covenant on Clean, Zero Emission Construction Equipment.

Under our Circularity pillar, we aim to reuse as many materials as possible, as we did during the recent renovations of our head office. Of all the materials used in the renovations, 62% were either made from or came from existing materials from our head office or from another recycled source. Another example is the batteries for no-break systems. In collaboration with the internal client, the contract was awarded to a company that specialises in recyclable sodium-ion batteries. Furthermore, decommissioned pumps from our gas receiving stations are sent to Circospin who, along with our supplier, ensure that these are disassembled and certain components reused immediately. What can’t be reused is recycled.

Biodiversity is reflected in our guidelines for groundskeeping. When you visit our office, you can see that the grounds around the parking areas are left to grow without mowing for long periods: the grass is over a meter high and you see a riot of colourful flowers and an abundance of bees and butterflies. And we also ask the groundskeepers at our sites to take biodiversity into account as much as possible in their plans and scheduling.’

‘Yes, the steelmaking process is the most polluting step when manufacturing steel components. It is generally the ironmaking process using blast furnaces that creates the most emissions. We conducted a trial with a pipe supplier using an electric arc furnace in which scrap is melted down into "new" steel using electricity. When using renewable electricity, this process reduces carbon emissions from 2.5 tonnes to less than 0.33 tonnes per tonne of steel pipeline produced. That’s a phenomenal result! Accordingly, when sourcing steel components we look for suppliers with electric arc furnaces. This is always a matter of finding the right balance. Sometimes the market isn’t quite there yet, in which case we consider the bidders’ sustainability plans, such as plans to use green hydrogen to manufacture steel.’

‘What’s really great is that more sustainable doesn’t necessarily mean more expensive. What’s more, we believe it’s important to invest in this. It used to be that the supplier who met the requirements and offered the best price won the contract. Starting next year, we will also be working with our own emission price, where we will take the value of the contract and add an emission charge of €200 per tonne of carbon emissions from the supply chain. Through this approach, which allows us to compare different suppliers, we hope to source the most sustainable steel. This shows the market that we are willing to pay a little more. What I like the most about this is that we’re inspiring suppliers to make their working methods and products increasingly low emission and circular.’

‘It is. Previously, we often pushed our own requirements and now we’re also continuously learning from the market. There’s a tremendous amount of knowledge out there. We often visit our current and potential suppliers. We share our ambitions and ask them "What can you do for us?" and "What can we do to motivate you?". We genuinely want to collaborate and lean on each other to move forward. This market exploration is important work for our purchasing agents.'

'In procurement, the focus here is on "social return". Suppliers reserve a portion of their budget for this. In 2024, suppliers employed 22 candidates with poor job prospects to work on projects they were carrying out on behalf of Gasunie. These candidates may have, for example, been receiving benefits under Dutch disability schemes. What’s more, we offer internships for students in intermediate vocational or higher professional studies. We also aim to make agreements with contractors about this. After all, it’s a win-win when we train new people: we need the extra hands to implement the energy transition.'

'Many suppliers are open to it and want to move forward in this direction themselves. At the same time, we can’t demand that they take certain steps towards sustainability: if they price themselves out of the market they’ll go bankrupt. That’s why we discuss what’s possible and what’s not, and how we can take sustainability a step further. For example, Technische Unie, which supplies a lot of materials to Gasunie, used to have a truck driving to our warehouse in Deventer every day. Now they combine multiple orders into a single shipment and drive once a week – unless there's an urgent order. This goes to show that an improvement can be quite simple.

We’re also seeing suppliers come up with great ideas. For example, we implemented a bonus system for companies transporting liquid nitrogen who can transport the product with zero emissions. This aligned well with the ambitions and investments of the supplier we finally selected, Air Products, who have invested in hydrogen-powered trucks and their own hydrogen filling station. These moves will enable them to supply liquid nitrogen using zero-emission transport in the near future. This company also praised our ambitions.’