Today’s ESG Updates
- Cement Giant Posts Record Earnings and Cuts Carbon: Cement manufacturer Heidelberg Materials delivered record profits in 2025, whilst reducing emissions, with €21.5 billion in revenue, €3.4 billion in operating profit, and a 3% cut in CO₂ emissions.
- Nickel Industries Integrates Climate Risks Into Long-Term Strategy: Nickel Industries published its first climate disclosures and set targets to reduce carbon intensity by 50% by 2035 and achieve net-zero by 2050, embedding climate risk into its core business and investment strategy.
- Engie to buy UK power grid from Hong Kong conglomerate for £10.5 billion: French utility Engie agreed to acquire UK Power Networks from CK Infrastructure for £10.5 billion, making Britain its second-largest earnings market and prompting an upgrade to its 2026–2028 financial guidance.
- Goldman Sachs backs clean fuel developer Andion: Goldman Sachs Alternatives has provided €67M in private credit to biogas developer Andion CH4 to scale its biomethane projects across Italy and the Nordic region.
Cement giant posts record earnings and cuts carbon
Heidelberg Materials Chairman Dr Dominik von Achten credited the company’s “diversified geographical presence and clear focus on our core business,” adding that it allows Heidelberg to “accelerate growth even in volatile times”. On the sustainability front, the company cut specific net CO₂ emissions a further 3% to 512 kg/t, launched its evoZero technology near-zero carbon cement commercially across Europe, and broke ground on the Padeswood CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) project in the UK, following the landmark opening of Brevik CCS, the world’s first industrial-scale carbon capture facility in cement.
Heidelberg’s Transformation Accelerator initiative delivered €380 million in savings, ahead of schedule toward a €500 million target by end-2026. Looking ahead, the company is targeting RCO of €3.40–€3.75 billion in 2026. It expects ROIC to stay above 10%, buoyed by recovering demand in core markets and a ~€1 billion acquisition of Maas Group’s Australian construction materials business.
For an industry long considered one of the most difficult to decarbonise, Heidelberg’s 2025 milestones from evoZero cement to the world’s first industrial-scale CCS facility at Brevik and Padeswood suggest that the path to carbon neutrality in “hard-to-abate” industries like cement, while long, is becoming clearer.
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Further reading: Heidelberg Materials closes 2025 financial year with record result
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Nickel Industries integrates climate risks into long-term strategy
Nickel Industries Limited (ASX: NIC) is embedding climate risk into its core business strategy, treating it as a financial issue rather than just an environmental one. As Nickel Industries Head of Sustainability, Muchtazar puts it, “Climate change is no longer just an environmental issue; it has become a real and increasingly material business risk.” The company published its first-ever climate disclosures in its 2025 Annual Report, aligned with Australia’s AASB S2 standard. It set hard targets like a 50% reduction in carbon intensity by 2035 (from a 2022 baseline) and net-zero by 2050.
On the operational side, solar panels at the Hengjaya Mine already cover around 20% of site electricity demand, fleet electrification is underway to cut Scope 1 emissions, and the company is investing in High Pressure Acid Leach (HPAL) facilities, which lower emissions intensity versus traditional processing, while joining a large-scale solar project backed by battery storage under a long-term fixed tariff.
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Further reading: Nickel Industries integrates climate risks into long-term strategy
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Engie to buy UK power grid from Hong Kong conglomerate for £10.5 billion
French energy giant Engie is acquiring UK Power Networks from Hong Kong’s CK Infrastructure for £10.5 billion ($14.2 billion), making the UK Engie’s second-biggest earnings market after France.
The deal, set to close mid-2026, will be funded through €5 billion in debt and hybrid securities, up to €3 billion in new shares, and €4 billion in asset disposals, with CEO Catherine MacGregor saying it turns a two-year strategic ambition into reality: “Today we really feel we are making this ambition a reality”.
The acquisition comes as Engie looks to lock in stable, regulated income, as power networks earn fixed fees regardless of energy market swings and offset setbacks, including lost Russian gas supply and frozen US offshore wind projects under President Trump.
Despite full-year 2025 EBIT coming in slightly below analyst expectations at €8.8 billion, Engie upgraded its 2026 net recurring income guidance to €4.6–5.2 billion (up from €4.2–4.8 billion), with a 2028 target of €5.2–5.8 billion.
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Further reading: France’s Engie to buy UK power grid from Hong Kong conglomerate for $14 billion
Goldman Sachs backs clean fuel developer Andion
Goldman Sachs Alternatives has committed €67 million ($79M) in private credit to Luxembourg-based biogas developer Andion CH4, fuelling expansion of its biomethane project pipeline in Italy and the Nordic region.
Founded in 2017, Andion converts organic waste like food scraps, agricultural residues, and wastewater sludge into renewable biogas and biomethane, positioning itself to become a major European biomethane operator.
The deal also comes with a “considerable” equity injection from existing shareholders, led by infrastructure investor Equitix. Goldman’s Christian Schaefer called it a “tailored financing” designed to “accelerate the growth of their platform.” At the same time, Andion CEO Jonas Martin-Löf framed it as a strong vote of confidence in the team’s ability to “deliver, own and operate biogas projects at scale”.
The move rides a broader wave of investor appetite for engineered biogas assets, backed by Europe’s energy security agenda, RePowerEU, and FitFor55 climate targets.
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Further reading: Goldman Sachs backs clean fuel developer Andion
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com — In the Cover Photo: Heidelberg Cement Office. Cover Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
