Since February 2023, Holmen has been a co-financier of the Hydropower Environmental Fund. Hydropower is the backbone of Sweden's fossil-free energy system and a prerequisite for Swedish industry to be competitive and able to switch from oil to fossil-free electricity.
As a co-financier of the Hydropower Environmental Fund, we take responsibility and stand behind the energy agreement that was entered into in 2016: that the energy industry finances wise environmental adaptations of Swedish hydropower, while electricity production from hydropower should not decrease by more than a maximum of 1.5 TWh.
We want to contribute to modern environmental conditions for Sweden's hydropower through constructive dialogues between authorities and industry, where well-thought-out trade-offs are made between adaptations that provide the greatest environmental benefit in Sweden and between other societal benefits such as renewable electricity production and the regulating capacity of electricity in Sweden's electricity grid.
In addition to owning and co-owning a total of 21 hydropower plants, Holmen is also a major consumer of fossil-free electricity. This is because we have converted our industries from being powered by fossil fuels to today being run mostly on fossil-free electricity and bioenergy. In other words, we have already made the energy transition that a large part of Sweden's industries are now planning.
Access to fossil-free electricity is crucial to meeting the Paris Agreement and a prerequisite for meeting all of the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Climate change is a major threat to the plants and animals that live in our waterways.
Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that the new, modern environmental conditions that are now to be developed for all hydropower plants in Sweden are also sustainable, i.e. balance the environment and climate, human needs and economic profitability. At Holmen, we want to be part of this important work.
You can read more about the Hydropower Environmental Fund here.
Hydropower Environmental Fund