Corporate social responsibility
Deltares takes steps on a daily basis with the aim of conducting its business in a socially responsible way and maximising the positive impact on people, the environment and society. Given our mission to continue creating the conditions needed for safe and sustainable life in deltas, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is part of our DNA.
We are dedicated to improving access to clean and safe water for all, providing enough water for food production and economic development, mitigating climate change and its impacts, and developing sustainable cities and infrastructure. We also deliberately focus on the effects of our activities on our employees, stakeholders and future generations.
We have formulated our ambitions for corporate social responsibility in the Strategic Agenda 2022-2025. The heart of our approach consists of conducting research and consultancy projects so that the impact on the climate and the SDGs is clear and so that we mitigate negative impacts. In addition, we want to minimise the impact on the climate of our own work. We do this by making the Delft campus climate-neutral and we compensate for carbon emissions from air travel at our own expense. We also execute projects at our own expense that contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
We encourage dialogue about CSR inside our organisation: how can we assume our social responsibility for present and future generations? We discuss dilemmas in our day-to-day work: what principles guide us and how can we put them into practice in the right way? We learn every day, from each other and by listening to the people around us.
Our commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) focuses on two areas:
- CSR in our projects
- CSR in our organisation
Read more about the contribution of our work in our impact report.
CSR in projects
- Deltares stands for responsible and sustainable business practices during the execution of our projects and when working with others. We comply with the anti-corruption code and code of conduct we have drawn up for this purpose. As a TO2 organisation for applied research, we have signed the Dutch Code of Conduct on Scientific Integrity, which is our guide in practice.
- We include the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations as much as possible in our programmes and projects. Examples include: ‘Improving ecosystem functioning to enhance biodiversity’ en ‘Enhancing urban resilience through water and subsurface sensitive development.
- We want to inspire our partners to work in sustainable ways, both in the Netherlands and around the world. In this way, by developing knowledge, models and tools, we contribute to the understanding of ecosystems in the Netherlands and worldwide. We study the effects of plans on human and animal habitats, we work with local NGOs on recommendations and plans that further social inclusion, and we include nature-based solutions in our proposals.
A brief example
You can find an example of how we apply CSR in practice in this project: Working sustainably with water and groundwater in times of drought. Drought is one of natural disasters that has most impact on the environment and people.
Drought often has far-reaching consequences for farmers, nature and shipping, for example. We can draw on our data to scale up useful information, making what is happening visible in a larger area.
Dimmie Hendriks, drought and groundwater expert
CSR in our organisation
Deltares works on making its campus in Delft climate-neutral. Our aim is to achieve a future without carbon emissions through a range of measures such as:
- installing solar panels on the Hydro Hall;
- installing electric charging stations in the parking lot;
- using electric machines for construction and other activities.
We have also implemented measures to reduce our energy consumption, such as the use of LED lighting and tracking energy data in real time. We are continuing to work on minimising our carbon footprint through concrete action.
We also contribute to society by employing people with a distance to the labour market. As of 2023, we have entered into a partnership with Print Pleasure and Fier Fietskoerier, external organisations that have a social and environmental impact.
This makes our work even more appealing. And the benefit is that these measures bring Deltares one step closer to its ambition of making the campus ‘Paris-Proof’ and minimising the climate impact of our work.
