Cloudberry Clean Energy Annual report 2020

Cloudberry Annual report 2020 Sustainability 44 The development and production of wind and hydropower is highly regulated both in Norway and Sweden, with stringent environmental regulations. Cloudberry maintains a continuous dialogue with authorities and local stakeholders. We aim to minimize the environmental footprint from projects and to maximize the local value creation. Below we describe the process of gaining permits for new wind and hydro projects, and how we assess sus- tainability within each stage of the process. Our approach The Identifying stage “Pipeline” In this stage, the opportunities for a windfarm or a hydropower plant in specific areas are explored and involves assessing the power grid capacity. Our policy is to seek locations where impact evaluations on nature have already been performed in order to limit the size of the area impacted. Furthermore, we evaluate the landowner’s interest for having a producing power plant on their ground, as well as identifying the local political view towards such an establishment. In Sweden, municipal plans for wind power are already in place. Cloudberry seeks to minimize the visual impact and aims to build larger, but fewer, windmills to reduce land use and noise level on the ground whilst seeking to balance the size of the shade area and potential ice throw during cold weather. Wind farms and surrounding infrastructure may also impact the conditions of rare plants, animals and birdlife and may change their conditions of life. Further studies relating to the environment, nature and wildlife are carried out to identify potential neg- ative consequences of the project. These studies need to conclude with an acceptable risk prior to progressing to the next step, which is negotiating Nessakraft, Balestrand, Norway