Climate
Governance
Copel incorporate climate changes in risk assessment and opportunity financial assessment, keeping its energy matrix, mainly originated from renewable sources and developing low carbon technologies and energy efficiency and conservation projects.
Climate change within Copel is managed in two aspects, including:
Operational and financial risk, due to asset operation modification requirement, revenue loss for equipment and installation replacement and by possible fee collection for greenhouse gas emission;
Opportunity, as it can trigger the search for power originated from alternative sources and with low carbon emission, including renewable power marketing in free market; distribution generation; and service offer, including electric service station and electrified rails.
Copel is aware of the market developments, and it includes business prospection, research and development activity opportunities. As part of climate change management, Copel monitors its emissions regularly; it follows government moves on carbon pricing; it assesses climate risks of new investments and it assesses business adaptation measures concerning climate change impacts.
Climate Change Policy
Copel’s Climate Change policy was approved in 2016 by the Board of Directors. The document was prepared by the Climate Change Steering Committee, made up of representatives from different areas of the Company, considering in its construction: the references of the GHG Protocol, Principles of the Global Compact, National Policy on Climate Change, State Policy on Climate Change and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2024, the document became a specific notebook of the Sustainability Policy.
Copel’s Policy establishes guidelines for planning and promoting actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to address the consequences of climate change on Copel’s business.
Climate Change Corporate
Management Program
Climate Change Corporate Management Program (PGCMC) was set forth permanently in 2014, by Copel Management, with the purpose of discussing and resolving actions linked to climate change effect study, and also following actions incurring from Copel Climate Change Policy deployment and voluntary commitments assumed. It has a Managing Committee, comprised by all Copel Management agents, that aims at discussing the topic and set actions to be implemented in the Company.
Stakeholder Engagement
Stakeholder engagement is among the main actions developed by Copel against climate changes and for its effect adaptation.
Considering the participation limits, each party is engaged in some level in one of the material topics for the Company.
Besides legal and statutory responsibilities that are assigned, Copel Top Management is engaged in the topics on the actions against climate changes while discussing, comprising and approving the Company Materiality Report.
Copel, through the climate change program, periodically carries out training and communication materials with the purpose of disseminating content and leveraging themes related to climate change.
The purpose of the Internal Socio-Environmental Committees (CISAs) is to encourage employees to participate as multipliers of sustainability concepts, through the development of actions aimed at socio-environmental issues, through work to raise awareness among internal and external audiences for the conscious consumption of natural resources. and disclosure of the Company’s socio-environmental actions.
Through sustainability promotion programs, lectures are held throughout the year addressing major global themes, such as: Solid Waste Management and Conscious Consumption, Socio-environmental Impacts of Copel Distribuição’s projects and Climate Change. The programs’ actions are aimed at promoting awareness and the Sustainable Development Goals.
In order to foster customer, community and overall society engagement in actions to fight climate change and natural resource conscious use, Copel sponsors, during its campaigns, actions including electric bike and scooter use, provided by the Company, in order to foster customers to try and use this alternate means of transportation, enabling carbon emission decrease.
It is worthing noting that Copel launched Brazil ́s first electrified rail (730 Km), linking the seashore to Paraná State Western Region, in order to foster electric car use. What is more, awareness raising campaigns on energy efficiency are advertised in radio stations, and videos on environment topics are advertised in digital platforms and TV stations, in order to provide information to all audiences.
Supplier engagement is performed by means of training and workshops on climate changes, by providing
Copel Supplier Manual and by socio-environmental liability contractual clauses.
The Supplier Manual is provided to the suppliers in every contractual execution, and it provides Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), restating what is found in socio-environmental liability contractual clauses, and it approaches Climate Changes topics, especially Greenhouse Gas Inventory, approaching the document development relevance.
Copel actions to fight climate changes are disclosed by means of the Integrated Report and they are aligned with Strategic Planning, risk management, decision making, business prospection and Company capital and intangible asset valuing, engaging and fostering trust to stakeholders and investors, as to the commitment engaged continuity and Group participation relevance in corporate sustainability platforms and indexes of stock markets.
Copel participates and assists action plans aimed at Climate Change, e.g., in Climate Change committees of Curitiba Municipality and Paraná State governments. This participation is aligned with the following commitment engaged by Copel:
‘Attending forums, discussion groups and alike related to climate change.’
The topics discussed in plan development include mitigation and adaptation actions that shall be taken in the next few years, in order to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)
Governance | Corporate Governance | The Company’s governance model encompasses mechanisms for monitoring and supporting decision-making on climate change. Initiatives and indicators related to climate change are monitored periodically by the Sustainable Development Committee (CDS) which advises the Board of Directors of the Company. The CDS is composed of three members elected by the Board of Directors with up to three members of the Board of Directors and up to one external member with recognized professional experience in matters for which the Committee is responsible. Strategic decisions such as approval of policy updates, commitments, and targets are part of the duties of the Board of Directors – advised by the Sustainable Development Committee, which is actively involved in defining the targets as well as periodically monitoring performance. |
Strategy | Corporate Strategy | In the deployment of the Neutrality Plan approved by the Board of Directors, the Company’s strategic planning, which covers corporate decisions over a five-year horizon based on Vision 2030, decided that Copel should have one hundred percent of its energy matrix deriving from renewable sources, which implies a divestment of high-emission assets. The strategic planning reviews and definitions were based on the study conducted by the Mining & Energy Ministry, which contains future climate scenarios for the Brazilian electricity system (forecast up to 2100), possible carbon pricing and the development of climate change adaptation studies. The study revealed that extreme weather situations may become more frequent in upcoming years in Brazil so this was considered in the risk analysis of the Company’s businesses since they are located in different geographic regions of Brazil. In practical terms, the study signals that the increased occurrence of extreme weather events, such as heavy rainfall, heat waves, and prolonged droughts, may impact the generation of electricity from hydropower. The study also shows that there may be an increase in wind speed in many areas around Brazil in practically every season of the year, requiring special care to be taken with transmission and distribution assets. In addition, critical climate events have occurred in the past few years, encouraging the company to step up research into future climate scenarios arising from global warming in its hydraulic generation (until 2100) and distribution assets (until 2050). |
Financial planning | Given that the guidelines of Copel’s Investment Policy state that climate issues should be considered in the analysis of opportunities and that the strategic planning points to a growth of renewable sources, the Company prioritized investments in technological development and innovation in its financial planning, as well as an increase in renewable energy generation ventures, such as wind, solar and hydroelectric plants. The trend to use energy from renewable sources is also observed in customers, who are looking for solutions that can reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions using renewable energy or the acquisition of I-REC to reduce Scope 2 emissions. | |
Climate risks and opportunities
| Risks
| The major corporate risks are identified based on the strategic benchmarks, climate models and the internal and external environments in a detailed Risk Management process. Since 2022, climate risks have been assessed separately from socio-environmental risks. The risk map plots both physical risks and transition risks. See the detailed breakdown in the Copel´s Integrated Report 2023 (pages 101 and 102). |
Opportunities | Divestment: According to the strategic planning, Copel’s 2030 Vision, and the Carbon Neutrality Plan endorsed by the Board of Directors in 2021, aligned with the Paris Agreement commitments, Copel aims to reduce its Scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and offset residual emissions by 2030 for assets under its operational control. With the divestments from natural gas, coal and piped gas assets in full flow, Copel is on track to achieve its goal of having a 100% renewable generation matrix by 2024. To further advance in the development of a renewable, sustainable electric sector that provides energy security, the Company has also committed to ramping up renewable energy production and diversifying its portfolio, increasing the share of wind and solar sources. In 2023, these sources accounted for 17.1% of generation or 4,257.53 GWh – in 2022, the volume was 2,901.3 GWh. | |
Electric vehicles: In 2023, the percentage of electric vehicles in our light vehicle fleet increased to 17% – the goal is to reach 50% by 2030 as stated in the Carbon Neutrality Plan. | ||
Solar energy generation: In another initiative guided by the ESG agenda and customer service, the Company has launched a service offering local renewable energy, through solar sources, in the form of a cooperative. This model’s advantages include the absorption of implementation costs by Copel, a greater renewable energy supply and lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as community engagement and support for small businesses. Copel is deploying solar farms in Parana State in the shared distributed generation model and is offering certain consumers, especially small businesses, the possibility of saving money. |
CDP
The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is an international non-profit organization based in several countries, the United Kingdom, Japan, India, China, Germany, the United States and Brazil, whose purpose is to mobilize investors, companies and governments to build and implement sustainability actions and practices, with a focus on emissions that influence climate change.
Since 2010, Copel has voluntarily participated in the reporting and disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and the company’s climate change strategies, in order to position itself among the world’s benchmark sustainability companies, attracting investment and reinforcing the positive impact of its image.
Copel follows the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) – an initiative that seeks to develop and implement recommendations for the disclosure and analysis of risks and opportunities related to climate issues – including the practices evaluated by the CDP.
In addition, the CDP is the basis for some of the assessments that Copel participates in, as well as helping to disclose (Integrated Reporting) actions in favor of issues related to climate change and the measures adopted by the company to continuously improve processes.
The scoring method is a way of assessing a company’s progress in environmental management. The application of the methodology results in a score that assesses the level of detail and comprehensiveness of the content, as well as the company’s awareness of the problems related to climate change, management methods and progress towards the actions adopted with reference to climate change.
In this sense, in line with best market practices and its commitment to sustainable development, Copel links its performance in the CDP to the targets of the Performance Reward (PPD). You can access the 2023 CDP Report here.
| Year | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
| Performance | B | C | C | C | B | B | B | A- |
