SGIT Policy is considered as the core document of the Management System, according to ISO 9001 standards – Quality Management; ISO 14001 – Environmental Management; ISO 45001 – Occupational Health and Safety Management; and ISO 55001 – Asset Management and seeking its certification, from which all managerial and operational actions related to the social and environmental aspects of the business are derived. Applied to the entire Company, it covers employees, contractors and partners subject to the Company’s guidelines, improving tasks’ fulfillment

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  Environmental Licensing

This is an instrument established by Brazil’s NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT POLICY (Law 6938/1981), which lays down the set of procedures aimed at ensuring SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, i.e., to implement ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL ACTIONS AND MEASURES in order for activities and enterprises that use natural resources to have minimal environmental impact.

The licensing process is carried out in accordance with Brazilian legislation and pursuant to the guidelines of federal, state and municipal agencies, depending on the scope of the projects.

In general terms, the steps in this procedure are: this has three stages: PRELIMINARY LICENSE, INSTALLATION LICENSE, and OPERATING LICENSE.

(i) Preliminary License (LP), which assesses the project’s environmental feasibility, when evaluating the environmental impact study/environmental impact report (EIA/RIMA) or simplified environmental report (RAS); (ii) Installation License (LI), to commence the works; and (iii) Operating License (LO), for project start-up, granted after verification of the implementation of the environmental programs required in the licensing process. New licensing must, where applicable, take place according to the licensing rules described above.

  Waste Management

We have a Waste Management Program (PGR) that aims to minimize waste generation, maximize reuse and reprocessing, eliminate or reduce waste, whether in implementation or in operation and maintenance, properly disposing of waste that may cause damage to health and the environment.

The Program is carried out in accordance with current environmental legislation, rules and standards required by official environmental agencies, the Normative Instruction for Waste Control and Management, and good practices.

For this, generated waste is collected, segregated, stored, treated, transported, destined and properly disposed of, in addition to undergoing routine inspections to identify non-conformities. Before disposing of any material, possibility of reuse, recovery or recycling is verified. For non-hazardous waste, when applicable, recyclables are sent to recycling cooperatives or to voluntary delivery points in municipalities according to the unit’s local context. For hazardous waste, collection and disposal services – that are environmentally adequate – are contracted according to waste type.

  Eco-efficiency

Most of TAESA’s units are supplied by local energy and water networks or by underground wells for access to water resources, and do not use these resources in their production process. The use of energy and water is limited to employees in offices, warehouses and substations, to building cleaning and maintenance and, occasionally, to reinforcement and improvement work in substations.

Management intends to avoid waste and encourage conscious use of resources.

Stimulating and identifying initiatives developed by some units that can be expanded to others, such as rainwater collection, reuse of air conditioners’ water and installation of consumption reduction devices in taps and toilets.

In relation to energy eco-efficiency, some initiatives are developed at the units, such as replacing light bulbs by LED ones, awareness campaigns for efficient use of equipment, and solar energy pilot projects.

Conservation and Biodiversity themes are also SGIT objects aimed at establishing the guidelines related to Biodiversity Management and Conservation in the planning and execution of installation, operation and maintenance activities of the Company’s transmission assets, maintaining a number of programs in order to prevent and minimize its interference with the environment.

Rights-of-way  are delimited underneath the transmission lines, which are areas necessary for the construction, operation and maintenance of the undertaking, including removal of vegetation, maintenance through pruning, and guidance as to the types of land use and occupancy. The Right of Way is legally established through the Statement of Public Utility (DUP) issued by the Executive Power in favor of the entrepreneur, without, however, undergoing an expropriation process. The calculation of the Right of Way varies based on the project and is standardized by ABNT NBR 5422, which specifies the minimum safety distances between the conductors and the ground or the obstacles along the line, such as trees, buildings and rivers. It also considers the balance of the conducting cables due to the action of the wind, the electric field, radio interference, noise and the positioning of the support foundations.

We adopt initiatives that collaborate toward minimizing the occurrence of fires or invasions by people or farm animals that pose risky situations for people and surrounding communities, the transmission system, and the environment.

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  Suppression, Selective Vegetation Cutting and Pruning

A major part of these interferences (cutting – plant removal), occurs within the Right of Way, and for this reason, we base our procedures on reducing the impact on vegetation to the minimum necessary. Selective cutting consists of removing only larger species, the crown of which can interfere with the safety distance – that must always be ensured between the canopy of vegetation and the height of the conducting cable. In addition, whenever possible, replacement of total removal of a tree by pruning is considered. Depending on the height of the towers, the vegetation present in a right of way can be completely preserved.

Another procedure to minimize the suppression of vegetation during the construction of transmission lines, and that TAESA has been adopting in its recent projects under deployment, is the use of drones to launch the cables. With this methodology, it is possible to avoid or mitigate interference in vegetation, ensuring environmental preservation.

  Fauna and Flora

So that interventionist activities resulting from implementation and operation of a project is carried out in an environmentally sustainable manner, actions aimed at maintenance, preservation of remaining natural vegetation and protection of fauna are employed by the Company.

Particularly for transmission lines, the main impacts are related to the construction period; therefore, concentrated on a brief period. Therefore, the installation phase of this type of undertaking is carefully monitored by TAESA by performing actions to mitigate its impacts on fauna and flora as far as possible. Programs are developed to:

• Displacement and/or rescue of wildlife species from the area of vegetation removal, releasing them in suitable regions, near the place of origin.
• Fauna monitoring with the characterization of the composition, wealth and conservation status of the target groups in the areas of direct and indirect influence of the projects.
• Rescuing germplasm (genetic variability of native species) for use in local biodiversity conservation and scientific research.

Forest Restoration and Recovery

Brazilian law provides for compensatory forest replacement when there is suppression of native vegetation cover and species threatened with extinction or protected by law. Forest replacement is an important action to compensate for direct and indirect impacts on fauna and flora.

Reforestation and enrichment planting techniques are used. The total planting includes the complete covering of areas without vegetation. On the other hand, the enrichment planting consists of introducing species, mainly in the final stages of ecological succession, in areas that have native vegetation, but with low species diversity.

  Degraded Area Restoration

The Degraded Areas Recovery Program (PRAD) is developed in four distinct stages: planning, implementation, monitoring and maintenance; its primary objective is to promote the restoration of areas through ecological and sociocultural solutions, which allow for greater integration of the transmission lines with communities in the project region. For the recovery of areas following construction activities, the techniques for restoration are defined and specified, and corrective measures to be used for their reintegration to the original landscape are indicated.

In the operational phase of the transmission lines, the actions relating to the PRADs are based on the correction of environmental non-compliances, which can be recovered by implementing surface drainage, deploying energy dissipators, and replanting the area with species from the very region.

  Environmental Compensation

Infrastructure projects – which transmission lines are generally subject to, when necessary to prepare an environmental impact assessment/report – are subject to the obligation of Environmental Compensation, established by Federal Law 9985/2000 and regulated by Decree 4340/2002, which deal with all projects that cause significant environmental impact.

All TAESA’s concessions under this obligation had their investment percentages evaluated and approved by the environmental bodies. It is worth highlighting that, despite being a legal obligation resulting from licensing, TAESA proposes, together with the units benefited by the funds, actions that bring sustainable results to the community.

Aware of the relevance of this topic and its effects that have been intensifying in recent decades, both for society and for the business – such as the increase in extreme weather events including storms, gales and intense droughts. TAESA recognizes that integrating Climate Change issues, in preparation for a low carbon economy, is essential to ensure its long-term sustainability. To this end, it aims to align and articulate the strategy of its business model based on the assessment of climate risks and opportunities, informing the society and its investors of the efforts and lines of action adopted by the Company. TAESA is also committed to identify emissions (through the greenhouse gas inventory), risks, and to establish action plans (mitigation and adaptation) to lessen the effects of climate change.

  Greenhouse gas emissions

From this perspective of climate impacts, one of the most relevant and widely discussed topics in the world, the Company began a survey of the inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol), as well as the implementation of the Emissions Collection, Management and Reporting System at 100% of the controlled concessions. Moreover, the report ushered in the first target of reducing consumption of fossil fuels by the Company’s flex-fuel fleet, with the aim of optimizing the consumption of natural resources (eco-efficiency) and acting responsibly, by reducing the volume of emissions that contribute to climate change.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that Sustainability is one of the fundamental vectors based on which the Company’s long-term strategic planning was prepared and recently approved by our Board of Directors. Therefore, the execution of Taesa’s strategy and our decision-making processes will always have sustainability as one of the key principles.

  Emissions Inventory

In the first stage, Inventory scope was defined (organization facilities and activities contemplated – organizational limit). Then, the organization’s GHG sources and sinks were identified, data collection process was carried out (by regional and corporate units) and emissions were calculated (using emission factors for conversion/ accounting) with the aid of a specialized software.

We conducted the inventory for base years 2020, 2021 and 2022; identifying that the results are compatible with the energy sector, particularly the electricity transmission sector, highlighting emissions related to land-use change processes such as vegetation removal, mobile combustion due to the company’s own fleet, and fugitive emissions such as the replacement of SF6 insulating gas, under Scope 1; and Transmission Loss, under Scope 2.

Concessions are responsible for managing the infrastructure of facilities and equipment, as well as ensuring the availability of the transmission lines. On the other hand, the ONS, by coordinating and controlling the operation of electric energy in the SIN, imposes restrictions on the establishment of mitigation actions and targets in relation to Scope 2, that is, to the loss of energy during the transmission process.

Due to this specific context of the Brazilian electric sector, there is a challenge on how to set goals aligned with SBTi initiatives, Race to Zero, Business Ambition for 1.5ºC and NET ZERO Ambition by the Global Compact, designed to comply with and adhere both to Global Compact and to the Paris Agreement, which the Company supports. Thus, we at TAESA are monitoring all these initiatives; we have established actions such as campaigns and training related to the topic; firefighting training and fire reduction; forest restoration; nursery cultivation and distribution of seedlings; and we are building a plan of action and targets to combat Climate Change to be implemented by 2030.