About E.ON

E.ON is an international investor-owned energy company headquartered in Essen, Germany, which focuses on energy networks and customer solutions. As one of Europe’s largest energy companies, E.ON plays a leading role in shaping a clean, digital, decentralized world of energy.

To this end, around 72,000 employees develop and sell products and solutions for private, commercial, and industrial customers.

More than 47 million customers purchase electricity, gas, digital products or solutions for electric mobility, energy efficiency and climate protection from E.ON. For more information, please visit www.eon.com.

Scope

Start date: September 2021
Geographic coverage: European
Weekly sample: High

E.ON's challenges and goals

E.ON’s ambitious goal is to be Europe’s leading sustainable energy company. In response to the pressing challenges posed by climate change, E.ON underwent a fundamental transformation, divesting its production assets.

Now, as one of Europe’s largest grid operators, E.ON plays a crucial role in the energy transition, providing reliable energy connections for everyone. Sustainability is deeply ingrained in E.ON’s DNA, and digitalization has enabled smarter, more efficient, and accessible grids and business models.

However, despite being highly recognized in terms of brand awareness, E.ON faces challenges in improving its reputation scores, particularly in a low-involvement category such as the energy sector.

During this transformative period, E.ON would like to address the following areas:

Public understanding of its position in the energy sector

E.ON needs to assess whether the general public adequately understands its transition towards sustainability. Understanding the level of awareness and perception among the public is vital for effectively communicating its sustainability initiatives and for gaining public support.

Targeted messaging and news impact

E.ON requires a solution to improve targeted messaging to relevant stakeholders. Additionally, it seeks to understand the impact of specific news on different segments of its audience. This will help the company tailor its communications and responses accordingly.

Flexibility, scalability, and integration option

E.ON requires a partner with flexible and scalable solutions to adapt and extend to multiple markets within the group. It also needs seamless integration of its reputational data for comprehensive performance and reputation insights. To do this, and provide quality and reliable results internally for activation and decision-making, E.ON sought a strong partner to provide perception data, enabling it to better understand its current standing and make informed decisions on its sustainability journey. In 2021, E.ON decided to partner with Caliber and implement a customized solution.

Our solution

Caliber's ESG tracking and elements customized for E.ON

Since 2023, Caliber has tracked Environment, Society, and Governance (ESG) scores for companies featured in various industry and stock indices. This tracking system provides valuable insights not only for E.ON but for all of Caliber’s clients, allowing them to assess their performance in these critical areas relative to other companies. To further tailor the assessment for E.ON, Caliber introduced customized questions aimed at determining how E.ON is perceived in dimensions such as sustainability or the green transformation of the energy sector.

Easy setup adjustment and direct API

Caliber's adaptable customization feature enables the addition of specific target groups, allowing E.ON to get invaluable insights into the perceptions of investors, potential employees, and energy journalists toward the company and its benchmarks. After a significant campaign in one of the markets monitored, E.ON could observe the impact on scores in various areas and among the identified target groups.

Customized brand and reputation dashboard

Caliber offers modular setup adjustment, allowing E.ON to pivot and adapt metrics, segments, and geographies as needed, even when new entities such as Essent joined the project. Caliber seamlessly accommodates specific requirements, ensuring the continuous evolution of strategies within the group. E.ON also benefits from the direct and live API integration with Caliber's reputational data, giving it instant access to up-to-date insights and analytics within its internal business intelligence (BI) dashboard.

Learn how E.ON leveraged Caliber to improve stakeholder perceptions

"Caliber's customized questions tailored to E.ON gave us a clear picture of how we are perceived by different stakeholder groups in the market. We also gained a better understanding on the competitive context and how certain initiatives influence the perception of the public."