Roadmap to fossil freedom

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time – our world urgently needs to change and find alternative ways of generating electricity and heat.

To contribute to the solution and become fossil free, Vattenfall needs to reduce its CO2 emissions and thereby reduce its carbon emissions throughout the entire value chain. The goal is net-zero by 2040* for our own operations, our suppliers and our customers. To make it happen, we are working determinedly together with customers, partners, authorities, and cities. We call this our CO2 roadmap.

*Vattenfall follows the Science Based Targets initiative requirements for the power sector when referring to net-zero. Effectively, this means:

  • Reducing scope 1+2 CO2e intensity to 9 g/kWh (over 90% reduction)
  • Reducing all scope 3 emissions by 90% or more
  • Neutralising the remaining emissions with carbon removals

CO2 emissions intensity


CO2 intensity: Grams of CO2 equivalents per kilowatt hour (gCO2e/kWh). CO2 intensity in the context of electricity and heat production describes how much carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted when producing one kilowatt hour of electricity or heat.

As a result of the divestment of the Berlin heat business, the values based on the reference year 2017 are currently being updated.

CO2 roadmap

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time. A great deal of effort is put into limiting the global warming further to 1.5 degrees. Meeting this goal means greenhouse gas emissions need to be roughly halved by 2030 and to achieve net zero by the second half of the century.*

The graph shows the evolution of Vattenfall's own emissions intensity over time, as well as our commitment to reduce emissions in the future.

All remaining emissions will be neutralised via carbon removals like bio-energy carbon capture and storage or equivalent high-quality certificates.

Our journey to fossil freedom

We use climate science to guide our decarbonisation trajectory, ensuring we do our part to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We have already phased out lignite in 2017 and will phase out hard coal by 2030 on our journey to net zero in 2040.

Fossil free progress

Discover how we're helping society break free from fossil fuels.

Sustainable production

We are transforming our production portfolio and helping our customers power their lives in climate smarter ways.

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