A sustainable Deltares in practice
With its second Corporate Social Responsibility, or sustainability, report, Deltares shows the steps it is taking to further reduce its impact on people and the environment.
Read our 2025 sustainability report
The 2025 CSR Report at a glance
In 2025, Deltares took further steps towards becoming a sustainable and socially responsible organisation. Some highlights:
- 100% of the electricity used is green, 31% of which is generated by the organisation’s own solar panels.
- CO₂ emissions from air travel have fallen by 53% compared with 2019, meaning the 2030 target has already been achieved.
- Work is underway on the campus to increase biodiversity, with nearly 500 registered plant and animal species.
- Deltares is investing in the development, wellbeing and safety of over 900 staff members.
- Knowledge sharing remains a priority, including 40,000 members of the software community, 288 new publications and 845 media appearances and publications.
- Integrity, independent research and strong collaboration with partners are central to achieving societal impact.
The report shows how Deltares is increasingly embedding sustainability into its operations, with a focus on the environment, staff, knowledge sharing and responsible research.
Sustainability in practice
Sustainability is closely intertwined with the work of Deltares. The challenges Deltares addresses are significant: making cities and landscapes climate-resilient, ensuring water availability, creating future-proof infrastructure, and tackling biodiversity loss. Through research and consultancy, we contribute to safe, sustainable and liveable deltas.
At the heart of our mission-driven work is our ambition to make societal impact; we therefore encourage governments, businesses and others to apply our knowledge. We report on the impact of our work in the Impact Report.
At the same time, we critically examine our own operations: how can they become smarter, cleaner and more future-proof? In our sustainability report, we provide insight into how Deltares fulfils its responsibilities. The focus is on the areas where we have direct influence, such as energy use, mobility, procurement and management of our campus in Delft, as well as our people policies.
Sustainable operations
Deltares aims to carry out its research and consultancy projects in a way that limits negative effects on people and the environment and minimises climate impact. To achieve this, we undertake a wide range of activities:
- Energy and buildings
We are making our campus in Delft more sustainable step by step. In 2025, buildings and facilities ran entirely on green electricity, 31 per cent of which was generated by our own solar panels. We also adapt our buildings, for example by connecting them to thermal energy storage systems and replacing lighting with energy-efficient LED lighting. - Mobility
Deltares is actively reducing emissions from travel. CO₂ emissions from air travel have fallen by 53 per cent compared with 2019, and within Europe employees are increasingly choosing the train. This means the reduction target for 2030 has already been achieved. - Innovative storage
At the same time, work is under way on innovative solutions, such as energy storage via the AquaBattery and other forms of storage to make optimal use of solar energy. - Campus as a living lab
The Deltares campus in Delft is increasingly functioning as a testing ground for sustainable solutions. Here, employees are working to strengthen biodiversity and climate adaptation, including compost production in a worm hotel and testing floating sensors that measure water quality. Biodiversity on the campus is also being actively monitored and enhanced.
Governance and collaboration
At Deltares, governance is not only about good management but also to a large extent about safeguarding the quality and integrity of our work. We aim to make an impact through our work, and sensitivity to the societal context in which we do so is essential. We take responsibility for this and have developed policies to further safeguard our key values such as independence and transparency. Significant progress has been made in increasing societal impact by improving knowledge sharing, reach and the positioning of Deltares.
Collaboration with our partners is also crucial, as impact is achieved together. That is why we continuously invest in the professionalisation of our partnerships: more structure, more partners and stronger strategic relationships. We do this with our dedicated employees, who are the beating heart of our organisation. We therefore invest in personal development, diversity and inclusion, innovation and learning.
Transparent and learning
With its CSR report, Deltares makes its progress transparent, as well as the challenges. Not all data are yet fully available, for example regarding the impact of the procurement chain. By reporting in line with the CSRD guidelines, Deltares is gradually working towards greater transparency and comparability. Our report therefore shows that sustainability is a continuous process: learning, improving and adjusting based on new insights.