Environmental Licensing

O licenciamento ambiental é um instrumento estabelecido pela Política Nacional de Meio Ambiente (Lei 6.938/1981), visando garantir o desenvolvimento sustentável. Ele consiste em procedimentos para implementar ações de controle ambiental, minimizando os impactos de atividades e implantação de novos empreendimentos nos recursos naturais.

Os ativos da TAESA estão distribuídos por diversas regiões do Brasil, conectando-se a diferentes contextos socioambientais e diferentes dinâmicas de ocupação e uso do solo. Desde as fases iniciais de planejamento dos projetos, são realizados estudos detalhados para avaliar os potenciais impactos de cada empreendimento.

O processo segue as diretrizes da legislação brasileira, atendendo aos requisitos de licenciamento ambiental supervisionados pelos órgãos responsáveis em níveis federal, estadual e municipal, conforme a abrangência específica de cada empreendimento.

Generally, licensing in Brazil follows three steps:

Obtaining the Preliminary License (LP) – which aims to assess the project’s environmental viability.

Obtaining the Installation License (LI) – which allows works to begin.

Obtaining the Operating License (LO) – which is granted after the project has been installed and verifies its compliance with and implementation of the required environmental programs, allowing the project to start operating.

  Waste Management

TAESA performs waste management and waste minimization to ensure appropriate disposal, in accordance with environmental regulations. This includes segregation, storage, collection, transportation, treatment, and responsible final disposal of waste generated during implementation, operation, and maintenance.

Before disposal, we evaluate possibilities for reuse, recovery, or recycling. Our priority is for non-hazardous waste to be sent for recycling to local cooperatives, while hazardous waste is to be treated by specialized services in compliance with environmental regulations.

For the transportation of waste outside of our sites, TAESA selects authorized companies and ensures appropriate recordkeeping of the destination at every step. Inadequate waste management can lead to serious legal and environmental consequences, which is why the company is committed to responsible practices at all stages of the process.

The process follows Waste Management and Control regulations, carrying out training and awareness campaigns for employees about the importance of adequate solid waste management.

  Eco-efficiency

Energy and water consumption at TAESA’s facilities is generally limited to employee use in offices, warehouses, and substations. It is also used in cleaning and maintenance activities and reinforcement and improvement projects at substations.

To reduce consumption, TAESA supports different initiatives, such as rainwater harvesting, reuse of air conditioning condensate, and the installation of devices to reduce water consumption in faucets and toilets. In addition, TAESA adopts energy efficiency measures like replacing conventional lighting with LED, awareness campaigns, and pilot projects for solar power generation. TAESA has seven photovoltaic energy generation projects spread across five regions of Brazil, with a total installed capacity of 397.85 kWp.

Every month, energy and water consumption data for each unit is collected for monitoring, along with other environmental indicators. The Company also encourages and identifies locally developed initiatives that can be expanded to other units.

Avoiding waste and promoting the conscious use of resources among employees is one of TAESA’s goals. The company develops projects, actions, and initiatives to enhance safety performance, aiming to eliminate incidents and strengthen the safety culture among employees. Additionally, TAESA monitors and promotes safe and healthy environments for any and all suppliers, contractors, visitors, and other stakeholders.

Socio-environmental Campaigns

For TAESA, facilitating the integration of communities into the changes caused by transmission lines is linked to one of our values, “genuinely caring for people.” This is accomplished through the Social Communication (PCS) and Environmental Education (PEA) programs, which are not only considered a Value for the company, but are also related to the material theme of Community Relations.

TAESA not only holds campaigns during implementation, but also maintains them in all operational areas to ensure that the population has access to the information needed to understand the risks and precautions necessary to live safely with the project. In addition, actions are taken to protect and improve the environment.

The educational, informational, and entertaining materials distributed during our socio-environmental campaigns are carefully designed to meet the linguistic culture and needs of the target audience, and are promoted in person, by radio, and digitally.

TAESA recognizes Conservation and Biodiversity as essential pillars of its environmental commitment. In this way, we work to preserve biodiversity in the planning and execution stages of installation, operation, and maintenance activities of our transmission assets.

The company implements specific programs for each stage of the projects, aiming to avoid or minimize possible environmental impacts. Our detailed analysis of each project allows us to identify and propose actions to prevent, mitigate, and compensate for associated impacts.

Although projects can generate impacts such as changes to the landscape and fragmentation of habitats, they also bring significant benefits, such as economic development, power supply, and the integration of renewable sources.

TAESA acts in accordance with environmental standards and proposes actions compatible with the social, economic, and environmental aspects of each affected location. We carry out programs such as Monitoring Erosive Processes, Recovering Degraded Areas, and Social Communication to ensure operational safety and appropriate environmental conditions.

The company bases its operations on the principles of precaution, ethics, and environmental responsibility, demonstrating its commitment and care for communities, civil society, shareholders, and regulatory agencies.

Check out our Policies.

  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.

Use and Occupation of Easement Tracks

The management of the Use and Occupation of Easement Tracks is a strategy focused on promoting a safer and more appropriate use of this area. The general guideline is to develop activities that prevent fires and invasion by people or animals that could pose risks to the safety of the transmission system, local communities, and the environment.

For example, building improvements, planting species that reach significant heights, and growing certain crops, such as sugar cane and eucalyptus, are not considered safe uses.

Maintenance of Easement Tracks and Access Roads

This activity aims to carry out preventive checks and identify possible environmental problems along the access roads, in the vicinity of the towers, and within the easement tracks. Operation and Maintenance teams carry out annual inspections to inspect the entire length of the TLs. Access roads to the towers must be in good condition to allow the safe movement of people, equipment, and maintenance vehicles, especially in emergency situations.

Selective Cutting and Pruning of Vegetation

Generally, interventions on vegetation occur in the easement tracks. Therefore, our goal is to minimize the impact on vegetation as much as possible. Selective cutting consists of removing only larger trees, whose crowns may interfere with the safe distance between the vegetation canopy and the height of the conductor cable.

Whenever possible, we try to prune trees instead of completely removing them. Depending on the height of the towers, vegetation in the easement track may be maintained. Furthermore, TAESA has been, whenever possible, adopting the use of drones to lay cables when implementing some of its projects, which helps prevent or mitigate interference with vegetation and ensures protection of the environment.

  Fauna and Flora

TAESA implements environmentally sustainable actions focused on maintaining and preserving natural vegetation remnants and protecting fauna, as a result of our interventions and activities while implementing and operating projects.

In TLs, our impact mainly occurs during the construction stage, which is concentrated in a short period of time. Therefore, TAESA carefully monitors the installation phase of these projects and implements actions to mitigate their effects on fauna and flora as far as possible. We develop programs to:

• Scare away fauna species from the area to be suppressed, rescue those that are unable to move outside the suppression zone, and release them in suitable regions, close to their place of origin.
• Monitor fauna and survey the composition, richness, and conservation status of target groups in areas of direct and indirect influence of our projects.
• Save germplasm so that we can preserve samples of the genetic variability of populations of affected priority and native species for future use in preserving local biodiversity and conducting scientific research.

After the cables are suspended, in some cases, there is an increased risk of collisions caused by birds that have not yet adapted to the new obstacles. To mitigate these effects, beacons are installed on the ground cables, in the spaces between the towers, to assist the birds with visual guidance. After some time, the birds adapt and no longer collide.

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 Recovery Program

TAESA implements the Degraded Area Recovery Program (PRAD) to restore areas impacted by the construction activities of its projects. This project includes defining actions and techniques to restore these areas and implementing corrective measures to reintegrate them into the original landscape.

During the operation phase of transmission lines, actions related to PRADs are based on correcting environmental nonconformities identified during our yearly Access Road and Easement Track Maintenance inspections.

Activities to recover degraded areas include implementing surface drainage, energy dissipators, and revegetation with species native to the region, among other engineering and biological measures adapted to each local situation.

TAESA is aware of the relevance of this topic and its effects, which have been growing more intense in recent decades, both for society and for business, such as the increase in extreme weather events including storms, windstorms, and intense droughts. It therefore recognizes that integrating Climate Change concerns in preparation for a low-carbon economy is critical to ensuring its long-term sustainability. To this end, it aims to align and articulate its business model strategy based on assessing climate risks and opportunities, informing society and its investors of the efforts and lines of action the company adopts, committing to identify emissions (through the Greenhouse Gas Inventory) and risks, and establishing action plans (mitigation and adaptation) aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change.

  Greenhouse gas emissions

In this perspective of climate impacts, which is one of the most relevant and highly discussed topics in the world, we maintain and improve the development of our Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions inventory, based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) and our implementation of the Emissions Collection, Management, and Reporting System in fully controlled concessions.

  Emissions Inventory

In 2024, TAESA prepared the GHG inventory by operational control, meeting the specifications of the Brazilian Greenhouse Gas Protocol Program (GHG Protocol) and its Public Emissions Registry format. The principles of relevance, completeness, consistency, transparency and accuracy were considered.

In the specific context of the Brazilian electricity sector, the greatest emissions are not under TAESA’s purview (scope 2, loss of transmission – which is managed by the Brazilian National System Operator [ONS]), and it is therefore a challenge to establish goals aligned with SBTi, Race to Zero, Business Ambition for 1.5 °C, and NET ZERO Ambition for the Global Compact initiatives. Therefore, TAESA follows all these agendas and establishes actions such as campaigns and training related to the topic, as well as forest fire fighting and reduction training, forest replacement, nursery cultivation, and seedling distribution.

In this way, we are building an action plan and goals to combat Climate Change in line with the 2030 agenda.