The nature of our business means an impact on the environment is unavoidable.   Our aim is to manage and minimise this impact.

There were 39 reportable environmental incidents last year. These consisted of 13 incidents in our generation business, 14 within our distribution business and 12 within our renewables business.

In 2009, just over a third of our environmental incidents were as a result of fluid filled cable leaks from the network, a reduction of 6% compared to 2008. We’re working harder to reduce this even more in 2010.

Our electricity and gas operations are certified to the International Standards Organisation's environmental management standard (ISO14001). Individual sites and businesses, including our distribution and retail businesses, power stations, combined heat and power (CHP) plants, the Liverpool Bulk Terminal, E.ON Engineering and Power Engineering Services have their own Environmental Management Systems (EMSs), all of which are also certified to ISO14001.

We are a licensed waste carrier and as part of our company-wide and individual business unit EMSs, we have audit programmes to monitor the effectiveness of our environmental protection systems, including the activities of our third party waste management companies.