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Our environmental impact

Here’s how we’re avoiding emissions with every charge and how we’re learning to reduce the environmental impact of our business.

Avoiding emissions with every charge

Every kWh sold at our stations avoids fossil fuel emissions. In 2023, Fastned effectively avoided 96,161 tonnes of CO₂. Total emissions avoided since Fastned was founded now stands at 171,762 tonnes of CO₂, which shows that growth in this area is exponential.

Every time a car charges with us they avoid on average 24 kg of CO₂. That’s equivalent to almost 8 litres of petrol that you did not burn while driving. Eight! In just 15 minutes.

Ensuring the sale of renewable energy

We use the EU's Guarantee of Origin (GoO) system to ensure that for every kWh of electricity we sell, one kWh of renewable energy has been produced. We do this on a country-by-country basis, buying, for instance, German GoOs for all kWhs sold in Germany, to stimulate local renewable production. The vast majority of the renewable power that Fastned provides for our customers comes from solar and wind sources, and sometimes, depending on the country’s renewable energy mix, hydro sources.

In early 2024, we verified our 2023 GoO purchases with consulting firm Dutch Carbon Consultants. Please find the official declaration here

For more information about GoOs and the quantity we purchased in the last calendar year, please refer to our latest Annual Report.

Reducing our carbon footprint

Setting the baseline for reductions

The creation and delivery of the materials we use to build our stations is both an energy and emissions intensive process. In 2022 we embarked on the journey to understand, and ultimately reduce, Fastned’s carbon footprint. Step one was to conduct a life cycle analysis (LCA) on a standard 4.2 station with four chargers covered by two canopies, built in 2022. The LCA taught us that building a standard station using the materials in our 2022 catalogue amounts to approximately 85 tonnes of CO₂. This analysis provides the baseline for the next steps in reducing our stations’ carbon footprint.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 calculations

To understand our carbon footprint, we calculated our Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023 with the support of and verification by external expertise.
We made these calculations in line with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the world's most widely used greenhouse gas accounting standards. The Scope 3 category includes emissions over the entire life cycle of our stations as well as emissions from business travel. This information will help Fastned make more informed decisions regarding its carbon emissions reduction strategy.

Going up the ladder

The CO₂ Performance Ladder, or Prestatieladder, is a Dutch sustainability instrument that helps companies and governments reduce CO₂ and costs within business operations, in projects and in the supply chain.

It is based on the principles of a management system and aims for continuous improvement. This means that continuous, repeated processes should exist in the organisation that are geared towards improving the CO₂ performance and the management system. This is also described as 'Plan-Do-Check-Act'. 

We're glad to announce that in 2024, after an in depth analysis of CO₂ emissions sources across the organisation, and an external audit, we achieved level 4.