Enabling sustainable development with our clients and partners

Sustainability is not only a critical business opportunity for DHI. It is deeply rooted in our company purpose and in our business. Together with our clients and partners, we use our deep domain knowledge and our technological edge to find new ways to use, manage and live with water and to protect water-related ecosystems, making a positive impact on our planet.
Our impact is predominant on three different levels:
  • Conserving and enhancing ecosystems – we help to protect the natural world and its biodiversity through the application of our predictive tools and practical applications. Our modelling software suite in combination with our advisory services is equipped to support science-based decisions on the management, conservation and restoration of nature, and our services include nature-based solutions, habitat restoration, wildlife management and conservation
  • Tackling climate change and building resilience – we enable our clients to reduce their climate impact through our products and services, supporting climate adaption and focusing on resiliency for water and environment e.g., in offshore wind farms projects. Furthermore, we collaborate and co-create with world-leading partners in engineering, insurance and economics to understand vulnerabilities and impacts, and to identify holistic and feasible solutions to sea level rise, storms, flooding, drought and other pressing challenges affecting our communities and infrastructure.
  • Driving sustainable outcomes – bringing innovation and science-backed approaches to our projects is essential in driving sustainable outcomes. Whether this be helping decision-makers target at-risk areas for intervention, influencing strategy or permitting processes or developing ever more accurate predictive models and knowledge base, our technology and innovation provide support for our clients and partners. Our long-standing partnerships across sectors, from UN agencies to international donors and academic institutions, drive significant innovations, extend our reach and allow us to positively influence developments around the globe.
Our key targets and commitments towards 2025 include:
  1. Mapping of how DHI’s products and services contribute to the SDGs
  2. Implementing sustainability as a key driver in our technology and innovation investments
  3. Innovating and connecting to develop new ways to support our clients’ sustainability agendas
 
Directly impacting the UN SDGs 
In 2022, we started to categorise our impact in terms of how our projects contribute to the UN SDGs. The mapping was done towards the five key SDGs identified as being where we make the most impact.
 
Through a collaborative effort involving the project managers, we have mapped 71% of our projects. The selection of projects represents all DHI client segments, offerings and geographies and the methodology for impact mapping was following best practice and guidelines from organisations like GRI. Based on the mapping, 79% of our projects contribute positively to the SDGs. In relation to revenue, this represents 68% of the 2022 revenue from advisory projects in DHI.
 
The following is our contribution to the five key SDGs for projects mapped in 2022:
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  • SDG 6 Clean water and sanitation: 49%
  • SDG 7 Affordable and clean energy: 12%
  • SDG 9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure: 37%
  • SDG 13 Climate action: 25%
  • SDG 14 Life below water: 19%
In 2023, we will continue the categorisation of projects and will set ambitions for the future share of projects with a positive impact on the SDGs.
 
Sustainability focus in investments
Technology and innovation are key elements in enabling our clients and partners to overcome their challenges and achieve their sustainability agendas. Early 2022, DHI launched a dedicated idea 'Innovation for Sustainability' (I4S) incubator programme with the objective to strategically connect our innovation and sustainability efforts by identifying and maturing ideas for new potential and commercially viable DHI services that can impact our planet in a quantified and positive way. Across the organisation, our specialists put their expertise, innovation power, idea richness and passion for sustainability into specific I4S ideas that were discussed with our DHI Innovation Lab. Five ideas were shortlisted and two moved on for investment.
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