Sustainability integrated into financial reports: the new way forward for Enel

For many years access to the world of finance has been reserved for insiders, with tables, numbers and charts that are often inaccessible to most people. And yet for some time now, the scenario has been changing. Companies are increasingly discovering that social and environmental sustainability can create long-term value: this is a choice that also makes sense for the business world because it reduces financial risk.

Our Group, which decided to place sustainability at the centre of its strategy some years ago, pioneered a new way forward in 2019 when it became the first company in the world to issue bonds that were linked not just to individual sustainable development projects, but to an entire strategy of sustainability. The SDG-linked bonds are so-called in actual fact because they are connected to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The financial markets greeted this initiative with significant interest.

The next step was to fully integrate non-financial elements into the financial reports. We have done so in an innovative way with the new Consolidated Annual Financial Report, a document that provides a 360° view of Enel’s activities and which, for the first time, is addressed to everyone and not just analysts and investors.

“This year we published with great satisfaction the Group’s new Consolidated Annual Financial Report that aims to be the first concrete example of an integrated report at the service of all of our stakeholders” 

Alberto De Paoli, Enel’s Head of Administration, Finance and Control

Sustainability is value

Inspired by the formula Sustainability=Value, which is a key concept of our Group’s vision, the new Consolidated Financial Report “has evolved in terms of content, offering a strong correlation between the economic/financial results and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set by the UN,” explains De Paoli.

The narrative structure of the new Report is founded on four pillars: governance, i.e. the organisational model; economic strategy and risk and opportunity management; the Group’s performance, both in financial and non-financial terms; and the future prospects in the medium term.

The Report has become the core document of the Enel Group’s Corporate Reporting, and is complemented by a series of in-depth documents aimed at specific categories of stakeholders: the Sustainability Report (which, as of the financial year 2019, constitutes the Consolidated Non-financial Statement in compliance with legislation ex D.Lgs.254/16 on non-financial disclosure), the Company Report on Corporate Governance and Ownership Structure and the Remuneration Report, in addition to the Report and financial statements of  Enel SpA.

Greater attention to climate change, and easier to read

The new approach is evident in various new features in terms of content. The information about climate change, according to the recommendations of the TCFD, the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures created by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to tackle the financial risks linked to climate change, is presented within the document in a way that is integrated with the various content. 
Moreover we have highlighted the Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) factors that gather all of the ESG activities that are considered aspects with which to evaluate increasingly responsible investments.

Another key new feature comes with the publication of the “navigable” version of the Report. For the first time, cross-referenced links allow everyone to browse the details of the document according to their own areas of interest and choose their own route through the information included in the Group’s Corporate Reporting. This underlines our commitment to our ever-greater recourse to digitalisation and our client-focused approach, facilitated by a more personalised navigation. In this way, the Report can reach a far broader readership, and finance can become increasingly accessible to everyone. This too is sustainability.