Our approach to biodiversity and nature-related impacts

Our business is dependent on natural resources and healthy ecosystems, which are essential for people, the planet and business long-term resilience. Land, water and mitigating environmental impacts from pollution are key focus areas of our biodiversity work.

Neste aims to drive a positive impact on biodiversity in its operations and in its value chain. We are taking a proactive, comprehensive and a phased approach to biodiversity:

Net Positive Impacts (NPI) from new activities: We aim to generate a net positive impact on biodiversity for all new direct operations, with implementation of the NPI approach from 2025 onwards.
No Net Loss (NNL) from all ongoing activities: We aim at no net loss of biodiversity from our existing operations and plan to implement an approach to ensure this by 2035.
Nature Positive Impact throughout our value chain by 2040: We continue to seek effective collaboration across t our value chain to avoid impacts on biodiversity and create a positive impact on nature.

To achieve these goals, we apply the mitigation hierarchy to manage our biodiversity impacts in a structured, stepwise manner. Our efforts are concentrated on managing risks to biodiversity in key focus areas where our operation and sourcing activities can have the most significant impacts: land, water and pollution.

Understanding nature-related dependencies, impacts and risks is an ongoing focus. These assessments inform our priority actions to address significant impacts, particularly in the key focus areas relevant to our business. We continuously strengthen our sustainability practices and environmental due diligence to manage nature-related issues effectively.

Systematic monitoring of the environment

Our refineries are located next to waterways. Porvoo refinery is located close to natural habitats. Therefore our environmental monitoring is particularly systematic at the Porvoo refinery.

Environmental monitoring is included in the requirements of our refineries' environmental permits. Ambient air quality is monitored in the vicinity of the Porvoo refinery by automatic monitoring stations. Groundwater monitoring takes place also at selected terminals and retail sites.

Associated with normal operations, our refineries make environmental impact assessments from time to time. At the Porvoo site, this is done also by monitoring the state of bioindicators, such as lichens and mosses.

Preserved and protected areas near our refineries

Nature conservation areas or protected sites are located close to our refinery in Porvoo, Finland. The Stormossen bog, a 75-hectare domed bog, to the west of the Porvoo refinery is protected and is part of the European Natura 2000 network of nature conservation sites.

At the Naantali site, we have some areas that we have protected in the past. The area is forest, voluntarily protected under national legislation. The protected area is three hectares of the total 300 hectares. Other operational sites we own are located in large industrial areas, with a lower likelihood of impacting areas of high biodiversity value.

Our refineries in Rotterdam and Singapore are located on industrial areas built on reclaimed ground.

Environmental management and compliance

Efficient use of water

Deforestation risk in our supply chain

While Neste does not use crude or refined palm oil in the production of its renewable products, we do continue to purchase waste and residues generated in palm oil production processes.

Since 2017, we have been developing the traceability of our PFAD supply chains. This involves identifying all supplying mills and, based on a risk-calibrated traceability to plantation approach, prioritizing and directing our due diligence efforts toward the highest-risk supply areas. Read more: Traceability information on Neste’s PFAD supply chain Supplier engagement Traceability and PFAD dashboard

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