Innovation

Rosatom Corporation has more than 16 business units: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear medicine, Non-nuclear equipment manufacturing, Nuclear Icebreaker Fleet, and others. Until 2019, the company did not have a sustainable development department. Rosatom has developed an innovative business process to manage the sustainable development of the entire corporation, thereby making a huge contribution to the sustainable development of business in Russia. In 2019, Rosatom created a department for sustainable development, the purpose of which was to manage the activities of corporations in the field of sustainable development. The company has developed a special tool to check and manage all business units for compliance with the sustainable development agenda.

This tool is a questionnaire that evaluates the current position of each business unit and determines its sustainability qualification. This procedure helps business units to join the sustainable development agenda. This questionnaire is a tool that allows Rosatom enterprises to learn more about this agenda, see how they are performing and see areas where they are not good enough. The questionnaire includes many questions about injuries at enterprises, electricity and light consumption, monitoring the support of local suppliers, and so on. Since the company has created a tool that allows you to assess how realistically the company follows its principles and mission. So, such a small survey allows you to monitor and unify the activities of Rosatom, monitor compliance with the sustainable development principles, raise staff awareness about the ESG - agenda, and improve Rosatom's activities and indicators in the field of ESG. After passing the survey, requirements are issued to enterprises with compliance monitoring.

“We have a large-scale, systematic work because Rosatom is not one organization. It is an entire industry. Therefore, we are introducing systemic mechanisms to implement the sustainable development agenda in the activities of our organizations at all levels”, told Darya Kozherova.

Inspiration

The introduction of this innovation contributes to the corporation's sustainable development, which positively affects the green financing received by the company. The company's management came up with the idea to show the company in the context of environmentally friendly products. The core business, nuclear power generation, is the most sustainable. But the company still has quite a long list of new businesses and initiatives in varying degrees of maturity. And this questionnaire was designed to assess the sustainability of these enterprises.

Overall impact

In the short term: Business units immediately implement recommendations for business improvement, allowing them to respond quickly to problems.

In the long term: this will minimize the negative environmental impact. It will also help promote the implementation of sustainability in other companies. The company shows by its example that the innovation introduction benefits all stakeholders: company employees, the state, society, and contractors.

What concrete evidence suggests that this impact has occurred?

1) Rosatom's business units certified the environmental and energy management system in accordance with the State Standard;

2) Measures were developed and implemented for employees to reduce water consumption, after which there is a reduction of 20% in water consumption in business units;

3) According to the State Standard, management system certification in the field of labor protection and industrial safety;

4) Supply chain management practices with sustainable development elements were introduced when working with suppliers, including supplier code development.

Business benefit

The questionnaire allows the company to become more attractive to investors, apply for more green loans, and retain Rosatom's leadership positions in the international market. In addition, the issuance of recommendations and their compliance has already given the company many advantages. Within the company, there appeared people responsible for sustainable development. Furthermore, by analyzing the questionnaire, the company's management makes recommendations and monitors the business units to include them in their sustainability plans for further development. There is annual monitoring of recommendations implementation. Adherence to the principles of sustainable development is fully controlled, and now the company has begun to use less energy and water, which significantly saves costs. Moreover, the survey results allow businesses a more objective understanding of what principles of sustainable development to follow in the company and vice versa.

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Social and environmental benefit

This innovation allows you to track working conditions, occupational safety, employee satisfaction, support by business units of local suppliers, and others. Recommendations are issued if the business unit does not sufficiently follow the sustainable development goals. So the questionnaire affects the monitoring of working conditions of workers, labor protection, labor safety, injuries, etc., which positively affect social aspects.

For example, Implementing the recommendations allowed the company to reduce water consumption by 18.5%. Talking about the social aspects, after the questionnaire introduction and requirements fulfillment, some divisions within Rosatom reduced the percentage of injuries by 36%.

With this innovation, Rosatom can monitor its carbon footprint and harmful emissions into the atmosphere and make prompt decisions to reduce the negative impact on the environment and to care about society.

Interview

Daria Kozherova, Deputy Director for Sustainable Development