Corporate social responsibility

In 2011, an enthusiastic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) working group, consisting of many young ECN colleagues, drew up a status report in consultation with the Board of Directors based on ISO 26000 and the GRI reporting guidelines. This enabled ECN to make choices and set priorities in the very broad area covered by CSR. In 2011, ECN continued its activities with regard to energy saving, sustainable energy and management of natural resources, areas in which it has been active for many years now.

In all stages of the procurement process (specification, selection, contract, order, monitoring and after care) ECN takes the social conditions into account as well as environmental criteria. The former pertains to internationally accepted employment conditions and human rights and the second involves environmental criteria (recycling, waste, energy use and percentage of green energy). We apply these for the acquisition of goods as well as services and labour. We use the PIANOo (the Dutch Public Procurement Expertise Centre) sustainability criteria of the government whenever possible.