08 Circularity

The demand for products is increasing worldwide, while many raw materials used to make these products are becoming scarcer and/or more expensive. It is, therefore, becoming increasingly important to make smart, efficient use of products and raw materials.

Gasunie acts in accordance with the Dutch government’s goal of having a fully circular Dutch economy in 2050 and beyond. A circular economy is one in which, thanks to the use of as many sustainable, renewable raw materials as possible and the reuse of products and raw materials, waste is kept to a minimum. To reach that goal, the government has also formulated an interim goal: by 2030, the Netherlands will use 50% less primary raw materials like minerals and metals.

Up to 2030, we will be converting some of our steel gas pipelines, which is becoming redundant due to falling demand for natural gas, into hydrogen pipelines (over 1,000 km in the Netherlands and more than 600 km in Germany). These pipelines will remain in use for many decades after repurposing. In the two decades after 2030, we will be able to repurpose many more gas pipelines as demand for natural gas declines further and demand for hydrogen increases.

Network components
When carrying out refurbishment or dismantling works at our sites in our natural gas network, valuable components can be harvested for reuse, either by Gasunie or outside parties. In 2023, we conducted tests on the reuse of high-pressure gas valves and redundant sections of pipeline. We are working on a standard process to assess harvested components for reuse and for putting them back into circulation.

Procurement
Gasunie purchases more than € 1 billion worth of goods and services annually, and our procurement of goods is becoming increasingly circular. In 2023, 22% of the products we purchased were circular by design. We want to increase that figure to 50% by 2030. We challenge our suppliers – in fair consultation – to show what they can do.

In the Netherlands, we have been recording the degree of circularity of a component in material passports for two years now. The material passport shows raw material composition of a product as well as the weight and percentage of each raw material that makes up the product. It also shows (as a percentage) the extent to which each raw material has been recycled and can be recycled at the end of the product’s life cycle. Our procurement departments in the Netherlands and Germany are jointly investigating whether and from when EU-wide standardised Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) can be used as an alternative to national material passports.

Waste 
From 2024, Gasunie’s offices in the Netherlands will switch to reusable cups (for coffee, etc.). Produced in the Netherlands, these cups made of polypropylene copolymer and free from harmful substances can be washed four hundred times. After a while, the cups are taken out of circulation and once more ground into granulate for reuse in new cups.

Head office
In 2024, our head office in Groningen, built in 1993, will be refurbished. Materials harvested from the offices will be reused as much as possible, and for materials that we cannot reuse ourselves, we will look for ways to give them a second life elsewhere. In addition, we want to work with materials that have a low environmental impact and that are sourced as locally as possible, ensuring that the parties in the value chain respect people, local communities and the environment.