For us, being responsible means caring about environment, our employees, our customers and other members of society, and contributing to the development of society and the communities where we operate. We also strive every day to make our energy production as environmentally friendly and efficient as possible.
We prefer to support initiatives and projects which involve large target groups and lead to positive long-term changes in society. Thus, our priorities include:
We are committed to supporting education in the field of energy and power engineering.
Protecting the environment requires a sense of responsibility and knowledge.
We invest in the area's development to maintain important local traditions.
A decision on allocating support is first made by a Groupwide sponsorship committee and then by the management board. We have set up a separate sponsorship committee for allocating support to the development of Ida-Viru county, which adopts decisions on projects aimed at Ida-Viru communities.
We restore the areas that we no longer use and return them to the local people and environment in the best possible manner. The former oil shale opencast mine at Aidu has been restored for an entirely new purpose. We helped establish the basis for a rowing course in the former mine, which was the first step toward building a future world-class water sports facility. The unique natural environment of Aidu is already attracting many visitors.
More than 4 million trees have been planted in the former Aidu opencast mine and the forests have been re-inhabited by wild animals. The 169 ha of restored fields are actively used in agriculture. The total length of canals is over 30 km.
Enefit cares about the health of its employees and all Estonians. Thus, we have created opportunities for doing sports and encourage people to exercise daily.
Among Estonian energy companies, we have the longest history and the most extensive experience. Thus, we are committed to supporting education in the field of energy and power engineering. We invest in making sure that there would be good and motivated specialists both now and in the future. We have initiated many projects aimed at inspiring, increasing and maintaining interest in sciences and seeing career opportunities in the energy sector, several of them in cooperation with educational establishments.
We offer field trip opportunities at our entities and internship for over 150 young people every year. We have developed and supported two Estonian museums – Energy Discovery Center in Tallinn and Estonian Mining Museum in Kohtla-Nõmme. We've been in cooperation with Europe's largest robotics competition Robotex, supported research competitions for students and published grants for science and mining studies. Every year our employees visit Estonian schools delivering lessons in energy and power engineering.
As an energy company, we are in contact with nature every day. Protecting the environment requires a sense of responsibility and knowledge. We consume natural resources responsibly and as efficiently as possible, we make consistent efforts to reduce the environmental impacts of our activities and promote caring for the environment.
Once a year we organise an Environment Day on which we organise environmental discussions with various groups of stakeholders.
We pay great attention to Ida-Viru county as this is the region where most of our employees live and where the Estonian oil shale energy industry develops. We invest in the area's development to maintain important local traditions, make the living environment more attractive, and create more diverse development opportunities for young people.
Yearly we support around 50 schoolchildren through the Ida-Viru Talented Young People's Energy Fund. The fund was established by Enefit and the Association of Ida-Viru Local Governments in 2013 to support the recreational activities of the area's young people. Most grants are awarded to young people who are interested in sciences or sports but we have also supported development in the field of music, culture and arts.
Since 2013, the fund has awarded grants to more than 350 young people.
Enefit cares about the health of its employees and all Estonians. Thus, we have created opportunities for doing sports and encourage people to exercise daily. The Estonian Health Trails (EHT) foundation was established in 2005 by Merko Ehitus, Swedbank and Eesti Energia. We have used it for over 10 years to fix up more than 120+ health trails across Estonia. The mission of the foundation is to provide everyone, regardless of the time of day and location, with an opportunity to enjoy exercising in fresh air. On the foundation's website people can find informative videos which give useful tips to both beginners and experienced recreational athletes. We also invite our employees to participate in the development of health trails.
Besides outdoor activities, we support exercising on our indoor health trail set up on the stairs between the 16 floors of Enefit's head office. Once a year we organise a competition which promotes using stairs and outdoor health trails. The number of floors and kilometres covered in a month is recorded and at the end of the month the most active exercisers are announced. The most important outcome is that many employees use the indoor health trail even when the competition is not on.
To promote health and wellbeing, we initiated a recreational sports tradition in Ida-Viru county. In cooperation with the Estonian Athletics Association, the Estonian half-marathon championships are traditionally held in Narva, which brings the best of Estonian long-distance runners to the border town.
On June 10, 2023, the Narva Energy Run will take place for the 11th time.
