Water

Almost a third of the Netherlands lies below sea level. Without dykes, more than half of the country could even be flooded. Fortunately, the Netherlands has a long tradition of dealing with water. It is deeply rooted in our culture. How the country has dealt with water has drastically changed the landscape over the centuries and has resulted in numerous ingenious structures. As a country, we are constantly inventing new techniques and materials and applying them on a larger scale than ever before. Our knowledge of water is even an export product that we use to help other countries reclaim land and prevent flooding.

Impacts, risks and opportunities

The full process description of the double materiality analysis is described in the ‘General Information’ section. We used the double materiality analysis to define an impact on water:

Policy

Heijmans sees water as a broader theme than the impact identified in the double materiality analysis. Our ‘Water Matters!’ policy applies to the entire Heijmans organisation, its offices and all project locations, both current and future, and focuses on four pillars related to water: Balance, Quality, Use and Safety. We developed this policy over the course of 2024 and we will implement this policy from 2025 onwards.

We have described our impact in the policy and in previous chapters of the annual report. In 2025/2026, we want to conduct an in-depth screening (impact analysis) of the impact in the value chain (upstream and downstream), as well as in our own operations. Depending on the results of this in-depth impact analysis, we will be able to continue to refine, expand and implement our current control measures. We can control or repair our impact on the environment by, among other things:

  1. Guiding the use of water types (e.g. rainwater, surface water, groundwater or drinking water)

  2. Creating awareness

  3. Applying our integral scan in the field of Ecology, Soil and Water (ESW) - providing insight into water risk areas (water and soil management map)

  4. Applying sustainable design principles and sustainable asset management principles

  5. Using the nature ladder

A more fundamental management measure could be whether or not to accept a contract based on its sustainability impact. The theme of water is knowledge-intensive due to legislation and the associated techniques. We set up the Heijmans Water Knowledge Network to gain and maintain a clear picture of all relevant developments. After all, knowledge becomes valuable when it can be applied in practice. The knowledge network ensures that this knowledge is properly secured, enriched and applied across Heijmans.

Heijmans is developing standards for water issues within its various business areas. Examples of these standards and solutions are described in the Heijmans Solutions Platform (HOP), the product quality knowledge base, standard housing products and our standard design solutions. Developments in the field of water issues are primarily driven by national policy, for example in the area of soil and water management-driven area development and permit obligations.

Water balance

The water balance has been disrupted in numerous places in the Netherlands. This is mainly due to human interference in the water system. We have organised the surface water system to drain water as quickly as possible, and we lack the means to buffer and infiltrate water. We also artificially manage the groundwater and surface water levels, and we extract groundwater for drinking water. The water balance is also being disrupted by a rapidly changing climate. This is creating problems related to water safety, drought, water quality, food production, the natural environment and health.

Our activities impact the various components of the water system and can lead to a disruption of the water balance. By viewing the water system as a whole, we can actually have a positive impact on the water balance with natural and technical solutions. We can help restore the water balance at both the building and regional level by applying the following principles, preferably in the following order: use and save, retain and infiltrate, and store and discharge.

Water quality

Water quality focuses on the suitability of surface and ground water for various uses, such as drinking water, water for the natural environment, water for industry, etc. This involves both chemical and biological quality. This differs per location, time and depth.

Our activities have an impact on water quality during the construction and utilisation phases due to, for example, (temporary) pumping, pollution from road runoff, sewage effluent and faulty connections in homes, and the installation of geothermal and energy systems in the ground. We want to improve our current impact on water quality by taking actions during our operations that actually have a positive impact on water quality and prevent or combat water pollution. For example, by applying innovations in road and residential construction. Decentralised purification systems in buildings and areas represent opportunities for us. We do this based on the principles of: connecting water, varied transitions from land to water and source measures.

When we work in coastal areas, we touch the sea and the life in it. This means we have an impact on water quality. We work with sustainable solutions and contribute to nature-based solutions whenever possible.

Water use

When it comes to water use, we focus on two aspects: the use of drinking water and the use of water for (our) production activities. It is important to take into account water flows of different qualities and to realise that the impact of water use varies from location to location.

Our own activities result in the use of drinking water and other water. We will ensure that we provide insight into this use based on our water footprint and we are committed to reducing our impact in areas at risk of water shortage by using rainwater whenever possible. If the in-depth impact analysis of our water footprint (our own operations and in the chain) shows that we can significantly reduce our impact on water use, then water extraction for our own activities could be one action we take (for example, store rainwater on projects or water storage for water use in the realisation phase). It is not yet clear whether we will have to purify the water we collect. If this becomes a serious option, the quality requirements set for materials such as concrete will be a decisive factor.

Water safety

Water safety is about protection against flooding. We achieve this through flood defences such as dykes and dunes, but also by giving rivers room to flow. Managing our waterways such as rivers and lakes also safeguards our water safety.

To guarantee basic safety, we take actions to prevent flooding from large bodies of water (prevention). In addition to this, we can limit the consequences of a potential flood by making the Netherlands water resistant (water robust). Finally, the government, water boards, safety regions and provinces work together on the flood crisis management front, in the unlikely event that things do go wrong. The combination of prevention, flood-proof construction and crisis management is referred to as multi-layer flood risk management.

The consequences of climate change have an impact on the suitability of infrastructure and areas for regional development. We are creating works for the flood protection programme and we are protecting our works against high water by taking flood risk management into account in our projects:

  • Working on flood protection in the Netherlands with delta technology

  • Taking into account the impact on our land holdings

  • Water-resilient design of the living environment 

Initiatives

We are affiliated with a number of initiatives to open up the discussion about the impact of our water consumption. These are:

  • Waterbank
    An initiative of the Dommel water board and various other public and private parties to connect supply and demand between various sources.

  • Construction roundtable for drinking water-efficient residential neighbourhoods
    An initiative of the province of Gelderland and drinking water company Vitens to save drinking water in residential developments.

  • COP water quality
    STOWA is researching the influence of the changing climate on water quality. Governance and implementation will be defined in more detail in the COP. 

Actions

We are not yet taking actions to reduce our water consumption in our own operations and we have not set aside any funds for this. We used the year 2024 to formulate our policy and map out our water footprint. We have now gained some initial insights that will help us determine the right actions to take. We use the dashboard to track our own water consumption. The next step is to get an idea of what is happening upstream and downstream. Starting in 2025, we will use our annual report to list the top five specific actions we have applied in our own operations in projects in water risk areas. This will also specifically apply to areas with severe water stress (if we have been active in these areas).

Targets

We set up the Heijmans water policy ‘Water Matters!’ (Water Raakt!) in 2024 as an integrated policy across all business areas. We will implement this policy from 2025 onwards, when we will draw up concrete transition plans on how to embed this vision in our DNA.

We have set 2019 as the baseline year for our targets and aim to realise these by 2030. We will initially focus on our own business practices and will work towards the upstream value chain targets from 2026. In 2024, we conducted an initial measurement of our drinking water consumption, which we had never (fully) tracked before. In 2025, we will provide insight into drinking water use in 2019 and use that as a basis for setting targets. Furthermore, our water-related ambitions are relatively new to us, and we are not yet able to monitor the effectiveness of individual actions. Once we have identified the right actions based on the planned in-depth analysis, we will continue to develop our monitoring and evaluation.

In 2025, Heijmans will actively share the ‘Water Matters! policy with its stakeholders and strategic partners to engage them in this shared challenge and, above all, to engage them in a dialogue about how Heijmans can continue to reduce its impact. 

Metrics

We report our total water consumption in cubic metres (m³) of water. In addition, we report our water use in risk areas and our water use in high-stress areas by risk score. Total water use in 2024 was 64,134 m³, and the figure below shows the use in high-stress areas and high-risk areas. The water intensity was 24.8 m³ per million euros in revenue. We do not store water for use in our current processes and activities. Nor do we reuse or recycle (process) water for our own operations.

Heijmans has not been monitoring water use as a standard practice, nor have we measured our consumption using smart water meters. When processing drinking water invoices that are received as PDF files, only the invoiced amount is entered into our records. This means that we have no insight into the cubic metres (m³) of water use stated on the invoices, so we need to use another method to obtain this information. This year, we performed a manual exercise to extract the m³ usage from all invoices and add them up. You will find a more detailed explanation of the assumptions used in 'Notes'. We switched to an automated method on 1 January 2025.

The figure below plots the project locations on a map of the Netherlands. The risk areas shown on the maps below are from the WRI Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas1.

  • 1When drawing up these maps, we excluded the option ‘regulatory and reputational risk’ based on our definition, which deviates from ESRS requirements. This includes ‘unimproved/No Drinking Water’, ‘Unimproved/No Sanitation’ and ‘Peak RepRisk Country ESG Risk Index’. However, these filters were applied to our water use.