Find the level of sustainability that matches your business's ambitions
The right level depends on what you want to achieve with your sustainability efforts. Five levels give you a clear starting point, from documented baseline sourcing to a leadership position built on new renewable capacity and the highest sustainability standards.
Core Standards. You start with baseline assurance that your energy is sourced responsibly. Your consumption is matched with certificates for low-carbon or fossil-free energy across the year, so for every unit you use, an equivalent unit has been produced somewhere in the system during the same year. This reduces the market-based emissions reported from your electricity and gives you a documented starting point for your sustainability reporting.
Voluntary Standards. You go beyond compliance by aligning your sourcing with recognised voluntary standards. Your energy can carry an eco-label or meet the criteria of international initiatives, documenting stricter requirements for how and where it is produced. This strengthens your position with customers and in tenders where sustainability is assessed.
Consumption-Matched Renewable. You make sure your renewable electricity is generated when you actually use it. All of it is produced and documented in the same month as it is consumed, which ties your consumption closer to the periods when the energy was generated and makes your renewable profile more credible.
Capacity Builder. You help expand renewable energy by bringing new capacity into the market. Through a long-term agreement with a renewable producer, a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), your demand helps make a new wind or solar farm possible, while monthly matching covers the rest of your consumption. Certificates document that your energy comes from new renewable capacity, and the agreement fixes the price of that energy for the full contract period, giving you long-term budget certainty.
Impact Leader. You take a leadership position built on new renewable capacity and the highest sustainability standards. A high share of your energy comes from long-term agreements for new renewable energy (PPAs), you support projects from an early phase, and your sourcing is fully aligned with the EU taxonomy. This lets you document sustainability leadership to customers, investors and auditors.
Beyond the level itself, you can fine-tune your profile. You decide how close generation should be to your consumption, from the wider Nordic region to a specific asset, and you can add your own preferences, such as excluding nuclear or wind power from your sourcing, or taking biodiversity and the impact on wildlife into account. Whatever you choose is documented, so every part of your profile can be backed up.
At Mind Energy, we help you find the level that matches your ambitions today and build on it as they grow.
Sustainable sourcing in practice
Covering your consumption across a year with certificates for renewable or fossil-free energy can add relatively little to the price of the energy itself, although certificate prices vary from year to year. They move with supply and demand, so a year with high hydro and wind output can make coverage cheaper, while a dry year can make it more expensive. Coverage that is more specific, such as a particular type of production, a specific asset or matching month by month rather than across the year, may cost more.
A PPA works differently. Instead of buying certificates on top of your energy, you agree on a fixed price for both the energy and its documentation for the full length of the agreement. Whether that price ends up above or below the market depends on how prices develop, which makes a PPA a decision about long-term cost as much as about sustainability.
Explore PPAsNothing changes for your supply of electricity. Electricity reaches every business through the same grid, so no one physically receives a particular kind of energy, not even when it comes from a specific asset. What your agreement determines is how much renewable energy is matched to your consumption, and from where. With annual matching, production and consumption are balanced over the year as a whole. With monthly matching, renewable production has to be secured for each month, which can make it more expensive in months when less of it is available.
If your energy comes from a specific asset, such as through a PPA, we balance the difference between what the asset produces and what you consume, so your supply stays the same whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.
See how Snellman gets a consistent supply from wind powerIn Denmark, Sweden and Finland, the revised CSRD makes sustainability reporting mandatory for businesses with more than 1,000 employees and a net turnover above 450 million euros. Norway applies the rules through the EEA Agreement, so the requirements and their timing can differ.
Many businesses go further than what is required of them, whether to strengthen their position with customers or to prepare for future requirements. Requirements also come from outside regulation, from customers through tender processes and from investors as part of their assessments. ESG is increasingly part of credit ratings too, which means your energy strategy can affect your cost of capital.
Understand the EU taxonomySustainability arrangements are built over time. Certificate-based coverage can be arranged quickly, while a PPA takes months to negotiate and commits you for years. If the agreement helps bring a new wind or solar farm into the market, it can take a couple of years before it delivers energy. Assessing your needs early gives you a broader range of options to support your sustainability objectives and time to weigh what each of them would mean for your business. A late start limits your options to what can be put in place at short notice.
Get answers to 5 key questions about sustainabilitySustainability is not only about how you source energy, but also how you use it. Shifting consumption to hours with lower prices and a higher share of renewable energy can lower your costs and strengthen your sustainability profile at the same time.
Read more about shifting your consumption
Case
How Scan Global Logistics helped bring new solar power to the grid
Scan Global Logistics, a global freight forwarder, sources renewable power through a PPA from a solar park in Jutland, Denmark, which the company helped co-finance together with Mind Energy and other partners. Mind Energy manages the entire process, from liaising with the energy producer and managing power delivery to mitigating risk and providing documentation for Scan Global Logistics’ annual reporting.
"This isn't about ticking compliance boxes, it's about actively participating in the green transition," says Simon Holst Algren, Global Sustainability & ESG Programme Manager at Scan Global Logistics.
The result is a partnership that lets Scan Global Logistics contribute directly to new renewable capacity, without having to become an energy expert itself.
The dimensions of an energy strategy
Besides Sustainability, your energy strategy covers Trade & Risk and Flexibility. The three dimensions are interconnected, and each one covers a range of business needs, ambitions and choices. At Mind Energy, we help you design all three around your business profile, so your energy setup supports how your business plans, adapts and builds resilience and long-term value. The result is a future-fit energy strategy that strengthens your competitiveness.
Administration is what keeps the strategy running. We define your administration requirements and design the right service setup for billing, data, reporting and governance, including automated sustainability reporting and documentation, and give you access through our self-service platform, My Energy.
Trade & Risk
Balance energy price against your risk appetite to secure stability. Based on how much energy weighs on your margins and how predictable your consumption is, we combine forward, fixed and spot buying to achieve the lowest possible price, while ensuring predictability in your budgeting and long-term financial planning.
Explore Trade & RiskFlexibility
Unlock your energy flexibility and respond to market signals by shifting consumption from high- to low-price hours, while maintaining the same level of activity. We assess your potential, advise on the right setup and operate your flexibility in electricity markets, giving you the opportunity to lower your costs, create new revenue streams and help balance supply and demand in the electricity grid.
Explore FlexibilityAdministration
Gain insight into your business's energy use through efficient administration. Our self-service platform, My Energy, brings your costs, consumption, sourcing mix and invoices into one overview that updates automatically. That transparency strengthens decision-making and simplifies sustainability reporting.
Explore AdministrationSustainability
Back your sustainability ambitions with credible action. Through guarantees of origin and asset-specific sourcing such as PPAs, you decide, among other things, how much of your consumption is covered by renewables, whether the assets meet recognised sustainability standards, and how closely generation is matched to your consumption in time.
