Transparent and ethical lobbying

The goal of Fortum’s lobbying is to ensure a favourable operational regulatory environment for Fortum’s business, support the strategy development and implementation while contributing positively to Fortum’s reputation, brand and license to operate. 

Our positions are based on Fortum’s strategic priorities and business interests while taking into account also broader societal objectives and implications. We communicate about our lobbying objectives proactively and transparently. 

Fortum lobbies directly towards officials and decision-makers, but also through different coalitions and many business associations, representing, for example, a certain sector or technology of energy production. We occasionally utilise external advisors in our advocacy work, but we always represent ourselves in external lobbying activities. In addition to the Corporate Relations functions, also Fortum’s business units and other corporate functions conduct lobbying. We lobby both on a national level in our operating countries and towards EU institutions. 

Fortum’s top 10 lobbying priorities in 2023 were:

• Proactive contribution to the development of long-term power market design in the Nordics and EU (investment framework taking into account system needs), limiting short-term market interventions strictly to energy crisis management. 
• Improved financial power market regulation (European Market Infrastructure Regulation, EMIR) with a focus on collateral requirements.
• Favourable operating conditions for existing and new nuclear, smooth licensing and economic risk sharing. 
• Favourable operating conditions for hydropower (balanced energy and biodiversity requirements), keeping production losses and environmental obligations reasonable. 
• Ambitious, consistent and stable market-driven climate policy framework based on technology neutrality. 
• Legal certainty and reasonable administrative burden in corporate sustainability legislation. 
• Reconsideration of recycling in terms of new technologies, such as Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU), creating demand for recycled materials by setting targets on recycled content.
• Comprehensive EU regulation for clean hydrogen economy development. 
• Improved operational environment to facilitate large-scale industrial investments to create demand for green and clean electricity as well as getting access to EU and national funding to enable investments in direct/indirect electrification projects. 
• Faster permitting and licensing processes to facilitate investments in renewables. 
   

Furthermore, Fortum actively participated in the discussions on the new Government Programme and its implementation in Finland in 2023. In Sweden, many lobbying activities were also linked to the implementation of the Government Programme, adopted in 2022.

In 2024, our key lobbying initiatives are related to lobbying for supportive regulatory frameworks to incentivise industrial decarbonisation, contributing to the market design development in the EU and our key operating countries, as well as ensuring favourable investment conditions for all CO2-free technologies (hydro, nuclear, wind and solar). 

Fortum’s climate policy advocacy is strongly based on climate science, and support for the Paris Agreement is the core principle underpinning it. We have expressed our support for the EU 2050 climate-neutrality goal and the revised 2030 target to reduce emissions by at least 55%. In our position on the EU’s 2040 climate ambition, we favour a target of around 90% net emission reduction by 2040 compared to 1990 with separate targets for emission reduction and removal.

Fortum participates in several international initiatives promoting the role of business­ in climate change mitigation. For example, in 2023, we joined the global ‘Fossil to Clean’ initiative by We Mean Business addressing global policymakers attending the COP28. The signatories, representing nearly USD 1 trillion in global annual revenue, asked for predictability and policy certainty that will allow businesses to develop affordable and reliable near-term alternatives to fossil fuels for their operations and supply chains. Fossil to Clean signatories also call for ensuring clear pricing signals through a meaningful price on carbon that reflects the full costs of climate change. For Fortum, carbon pricing has long been a priority instrument in mitigating climate change; for example, the company is involved in the global Call on Carbon Initiative. 

In Finland, a new Transparency Register Act entered into force in January 2024. The purpose of the Finnish Transparency Register is to improve the transparency of lobbying and decision-making and to make it easier to follow the functioning of the political system. Fortum supported the new legislation and actively participated in its implementation process in 2023. To facilitate a smooth implementation of the new legislation and to improve our coordinated dialogue with political stakeholders, we have adopted an internal transparency register tool in all our main operating countries. 

Fortum also participates in the OECD Trusted Dialogue on Getting Influence Right that aims to identify core Principles of Responsible Corporate Political Engagement, applicable to the range of legitimate practices companies use to influence public policy and across various sectors, industries, and regions. These Principles will provide guidance for companies on how to organise, exercise, conduct, monitor and report on their political activities in a way that does not raise concerns over the integrity and inclusiveness of public policy-making processes and in a way that does consider the materiality of corporate political activities.

Fortum is registered in the EU Transparency Register, ID: 03501997362-71, and the Finnish Transparency Register, register number FOR-24-343-R.