Energie AG carries out active building benchmarking in Austria. The Group headquarters, the Power Tower in Linz, is one of the first high-rise office buildings in the world designed to Passive House standard. The 74 m-high office tower in Linz’s Bahnhofsviertel copes without being connected to the district heating network and does not require any fossil fuel use. It emits around 300 tonnes less CO2 a year than other high-rises. Power is supplied to the building via a complex system, making innovative use of traditional technologies. The power for heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting is obtained from the earth, ground water and sun. There is a photovoltaic system integrated into the façade on the southwest side of the Power Tower. In addition to the Power Tower, ongoing improvements and optimisation efforts help to ensure that energy use is low in the operations of all the other buildings of the Energie AG Group.
Fish ladders have been built at Energie AG’s run-of-river power plants in accordance with the Water Framework Directive. A fish ladder was also installed at the Partenstein pumped storage power plant during the 2017/2018 fiscal year. With over 20 licenced fisheries in Upper Austria and Salzburg, Energie AG is one of the largest fisheries managers in Upper Austria. The licenced fisheries next to the hydropower plants are also sustainably managed. As well as supporting natural reproduction, Energie AG also ensures an attractive and naturally authentic population density by means of ecological breeding programmes and regular stocking with native fish species.
In purchasing processes, some environmentally relevant criteria are set as mandatory requirements in the text of requests for proposal.