Essent and RWE, together towards a sustainable future

Arnhem, 30 January 2009 - The World Nature Fund (WNF), announced today that it will end its partnership with Essent once the take-over by RWE becomes reality. Essent regrets this step. In co-operation with the WNF, over the years, Essent has developed activities relating to sustainable enterprise and combating climate change.

Essent regrets the step by the WNF

Essent has been the main sponsor of the World Nature Fund since 2001, but this co-operation was already in existence in the mid 1990s. On account of the development of Groene Stroom® (Green Energy), plus the market for the Groene Stroom product having been forced open, both organisations have taken the initiative to develop sustainable energy products in our country. That has resulted in an enormous rise in the number of customers purchasing Groene Stroom; from circa 50,000 to more than 900,000 customers. Meanwhile, the number of households in our country that consume green energy has now risen to approximately 2.7 million. Additionally, for many years jointly with the WNF, Essent has successfully brought ‘Groen voor Gas’ (Green for Gas) onto the market.

Durable Green

Nothing will change for Essent's customers. In fact, quite the contrary. Essent will continue to offer Groene Stroom as a product at the same price as grey power. In addition, ‘Groen voor Gas’, where customers are compensated for the CO2 emission through their gas consumption, will continue to be an important environmentally friendly product.

Essent’s investment in sustainable energy production will even be stepped up, during which wind energy, the use of biomass as a replacement for fossil fuels, decentralised power generation and the capture and storage of CO2, will be given priority.

As part of the intended co-operation, Essent and RWE have emphatically stated that they wish to continue along the road of preservation of the (future) energy supply and would like to work jointly with both the WNF (and WWF Germany), towards this aim. In the coming months, Essent hopes that during discussions with the WNF, it will be possible to develop that path further and would like to appeal to the WNF to continue to hold open talks.

Published: 30 January 2009