The conversation around corporate sustainability has shifted in the past year. In the US there has been significant political pushback against climate action, while the EU is revisiting some of its flagship green regulation in the face of economic pressures. Yet for many organisations the work is continuing at pace behind the scenes, as environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives remain central not only for ensuring business resilience and securing investment, but for building reputation and public trust.
Among those stepping forward to put sustainability back in the spotlight is ESB, Ireland’s leading energy utility. The company has just published its first sustainability report aligned to the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), in advance of the legislation coming into force for Wave 2 reporters in 2028.
“This report marks a milestone in our sustainability journey, bringing a new level of transparency to how we share our progress,” outlines ESB’s group head of sustainability Sharon McManus. McManus has led the company’s sustainability strategy since 2024, making the move to ESB after almost three decades in the Irish Defence Forces where she held senior positions in engineering, energy management, climate and utilities, strategic capability development, and UN peacekeeping.
“Energy security and national security are inextricably linked, and going from the Irish Defence Forces Corps of Engineers to head of sustainability at ESB felt like a natural move,” she explains.
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Delivering infrastructure in a sustainable way
“ESB is unique in terms of our role in Ireland’s broader energy transition,” points out McManus. The company has set the objective of achieving net-zero carbon emissions across its operations by 2040, as an essential foundation to enable Ireland to reach net zero by 2050. “Our 2040 target places sustainability at the very heart of our corporate strategy.”
This will require large investment both in terms of decarbonised electricity generation and expanded grid infrastructure. Beyond climate goals, this infrastructure delivery is viewed as essential to support a growing population and economy. In 2025 alone, ESB invested €2.7 billion in critical energy infrastructure. And ESB Networks has been given the green light for more than €13 billion in electricity network infrastructure investment under the regulatory framework for the Price Review 6 (PR6) period of 2026-2030.
“There is huge trust being placed in ESB to deliver the energy transition,” says McManus. “We want to ensure we go about this in a sustainable way, upholding our commitments to protect our planet, the places where we operate, and the people we work with and for. Transparent reporting on our sustainability progress is really important to hold ourselves accountable.”
A transparent picture of progress and challenges
“The report is an opportunity to document all we have delivered in 2025, as we build momentum in areas like renewable electricity generation, resilient infrastructure, biodiversity, and people-centred sustainability,” McManus points out.
The data and stories shared across the three pillars of environment, social and governance paint a picture of an organisation laser-focused on delivery. Highlights from the journey to net zero include ending coal-fired electricity generation last summer, launching the company’s first wholly owned solar farm, and winning the rights to develop the Tonn Nua offshore wind farm off the southeast coast, together with partner Ørsted. “We are really proud of these steps we have taken to support Ireland’s transition to a cleaner, more resilient energy future,” says McManus.
Reporting on the social pillar brings to life how ESB is empowering customers through programmes like the roll-out of smart meters, and is contributing to communities with more than €2 million every year in development and benefit funds. It also explores action to support workers in the value chain, such as the design of a human rights due diligence process, and targeted equity and inclusion measures for ESB’s own workforce.
“All of these measures contribute to the wider objective of ensuring that customers are active participants in the energy transition and that ESB has a resilient supply chain to sustain operations,” McManus underlines.
Embedding sustainability beyond reporting
The final pillar, governance, shines a light on how culture and decision-making contribute to sustainability outcomes – with ESB’s adoption of CSRD reporting playing a central role.
As a semistate body, ESB participates in CSRD on a voluntary basis. The company has a long track record in transparency on sustainability. It began reporting on ‘social responsiveness’ as far back as the 1970s, was a founding member of Business in the Community in 2000, and published its first stand-alone sustainability report in 2011.
“The transition to CSRD reporting is not a sudden departure for ESB, it’s a continuation – more structured, more comprehensive and more assured,” McManus says.
The report presents material impacts, risks and opportunities for relevant areas across the business – setting out targets to be achieved, actions needed to achieve them, and how progress is measured.
The level of detail and rigour required for this new kind of reporting demands an organisation-wide approach. For ESB, this was as much an opportunity as a challenge and fed into a broader transformation, as McManus explains: “Putting in place the structures and processes to implement CSRD through our Sustainability Transformation Enablement Programme (STEP) has been part of a wider drive to embed sustainability throughout our business, as an essential strategy to meet our net-zero objectives.”
Facing the future
For McManus and her team, it was important that the report does not shy away from the challenges ahead, both for ESB and the energy sector more broadly.
“We want to be really honest about the bumps in the road and how we can overcome them,” she explains. “Whether it’s about squaring the circle of massively building out renewables and grid, while using resources responsibly; or making the critical infrastructure investment needed while ensuring energy remains affordable for all – these are challenges faced across our industry, and an open discussion will help us find a way forward together.”
In addition to providing a transparent picture of progress for stakeholders and investors, the report offers an opportunity to communicate more widely on a sample of all that ESB is doing to enable Ireland’s sustainable energy transition. As McManus concludes: “For the customers and communities we serve, we hope that the stories we share build trust and support for the journey we are on, as we work to deliver a clean, secure energy system – for future us.”
