E2 – Pollution

Peab and pollution

Positive impacts / opportunities

Negative impacts / risks

Activities like Peab’s operations and their value chains generate pollution in various life cycle phases. Pollution can damage human health and the environment, cause damages to material property or, for example, make it harder to take advantage of nature’s ecosystem services.

In assessing impact and financial materiality we have determined two kinds of substances as material: substances of concern and substances of very high concern.

Peab uses in production substances of concern and substances of very high concern separately, in mixtures or in goods. These can be chemicals or material that can pose health and/or environmental risks. They are substances that are carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic (CMR), or have persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) properties. Substances of concern, including substances of very high concern, are regulated by the European REACH and CLP Regulations aimed at protecting human health and the environment. REACH requires the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals while CLP standardizes classification, labelling and packaging chemicals.

Regarding Peab’s operations and substances of concern and substances of very high concern, here below are some examples of substances along the value chain that might be included:

Upstream: Chemicals in production processes, such as paving material to protect surfaces

Own operations: Chemical products like cleaning fluid, glue or paint in construction

Downstream: PVC and other plastic when recycling construction material, emissions from paint in buildings

Process regarding materiality

In order to evaluate Peab’s impacts, risks and opportunities in relation to pollution in our own operations and value chains we have worked in cross-functional teams with employee representation from the entire Group. We have conducted a double materiality assessment for E2 pollution per value chain and country and thereafter consolidated the assessments to Group level. The cross-functional teams have mainly consisted of pollution and chemical specialists from the four business areas, financial controllers and category purchasers. In addition a number of employees from Group functions have participated in the work. The function non-financial reporting has coordinated the process regarding materiality, which has been conducted as described in the section ESRS 2 on page 49.

This is how we work

Peab has a responsibility to protect humans and the environment from hazardous exposure, both during production and in the user phase. A condition for creating circular resource efficient flows is to avoid substances of concern in materials. That which is hazardous or dangerous should, quite simply, never be allowed into our operations.

One of Peab’s three environmental targets is that by 2030 we will have phased out environmentally and health hazardous products. The targets have been set by executive management and comprise metrics, measurement methods and strategic improvement areas. They are then broken down in sub-targets and concretized in the various operations based on the business areas’ specific circumstances and challenges.

Responsibility and policies

The Group’s Head of Environment coordinates and drives joint environmental matters, including pollution issues, together with business area environmental managers and specialists. The Group’s environmental functions support the responsible managers in making decisions about pollution matters in order to turn plans into action and generate progress in the work.

The Group has a so-called Chemical Council to ensure a holistic perspective and efficient management of a country’s and/or Groupwide matters. Peab has regulations that describe how we work with substitution of environmentally and health hazardous products as well as a schedule for phasing out substances of concern.

The majority of Peab’s operations work within the framework of a management system that is environmentally certified according to ISO 14001. The management system contains procedures that describe how Peab prevents and controls the use of chemicals. The environmental management system is integrated into our business management system which, among other things, comprises Peab’s Environmental Policy where we state that our goal is to phase out environmentally and health hazardous products. The four business areas are responsible for implementing and complying with the management system and policies in day-to-day work.

Peab has preventative measures for substances of concern describing, for example, proper storage, labelling and handling of chemical products like taking into consideration the material in a container, secondary containment, storage placement and design as well as available spill kits.

In accordance with the law we have procedures for risk analyses of chemical products before handling them, in order to prevent a hazardous impact on human health and the environment.

We have Group emergency procedures on what to do in the case of an accident or emergency. The purpose of the procedures is to identify and prevent environmental risks and plan emergency preparedness so that we can act quickly and correctly in the case of an accident or emergency. Emergency procedures include a checklist for managing an environmental accident and instructions on reporting environmental accidents or incidents.

Work method and focus areas

Our ability to phase out environmentally and health hazardous products is largely determined by making the right decision from the start. To phase out these products we use environmental assessment systems such as Byggvarubedömningen, Basta and Cobuilder to help us select products. We develop methods and systems to steer purchasing towards better product selection by, for instance, integrating information on environmental assessments and ecolabelling into our purchasing processes. We also have procedures and instructions that describe how to select products.

We work with a substitution ladder and have clearly defined the criteria that are the basis for phasing out substances and products of concern and very high concern.  To support this we have implemented a digital chemical management system to facilitate monitoring and controlling chemical consumption and we work with correct substitution as well as a digital tool that visualizes where we are in phasing out hazardous products. We have also begun the work through our purchasing system to limit chemical products that contain hazardous substances according to Peab’s phasing out criteria.

In addition to Groupwide procedures there are operation specific routines and checklists on how to handle specific risks in different operations linked to substances of concern.

The company has operations that require permits. According to current environmental law we must apply for an environmental permit to run these operations. In preparation for applying for a permit we produce an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in which we examine the environmental impact of the operations. Significant environmental impact is then regulated in the permit, for example through restrictions in the scope of the operations or special conditions we must comply with to minimize our negative environmental impact and protect human health. In preparation for an EIA we hold consultations to get stakeholders involved and gather viewpoints on the planned operations or measures that can impact the environment.

Looking ahead

We will continue our work based on the conclusions in the double materiality assessment regarding pollution. This means continuing to develop processes and work methods as well as our ability to report in accordance with the disclosure requirements in CSRD legislation. An example of this is our intention to review Peab’s Environmental Policy to evaluate the need for governance regarding pollution.

Targets and metrics

In order to achieve the target of phasing out environmentally and health hazardous products by 2030 we have set a sub-target for 2026:

• The portion of unique chemical products that meet Peab criteria will be >70 %.

Peab criteria are based on EU legislation and are aligned with Basta, which is a market leading environmental assessment system for products in Sweden. The target is measured as the number of chemical products that meet Peab criteria in relation to the total number of registered products.