Actors and promotors of sustainable development

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"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success". This  famous quote by Henry Ford says a lot about how the father of the assembly line and of industrial-scale manufactured automobiles conceived businesses. But it can sound even more significant if  applied to the two challenges we face today: fighting climate change and creating a  low-carbon economy.

Environmental and economic sustainability are the result of the direct commitment of individuals, as well as of their cooperation. To begin with, businesses, institutions and citizens are asked to make choices and promote virtuous behaviours within their direct framework of action and responsibility. But the quality leap allowing to achieve a new low-carbon economic model and sustainable development for the whole world can only take place through cooperation between parties that operate not only within the same frameworks and fields, but also in the many 'worlds' that make up our society: businesses, institutions and citizens.

In order to make its business increasingly sustainable the Enel Group has launched initiatives aiming at constantly improving efficiency and plant greening, introducing solutions and policies that promote  and achieve sustainable processes and actions along its entire value chain. The innovations introduced within the various technologies in the field of distribution– such as smart grids – and generation, from thermoelectric to renewables, as well as the adoption of the Creating Shared Value (CSV) model witness this commitment, which is a pillar of the Group's industrial strategy.

The commitment to promote sustainability beyond its already large framework of  action  has led the Group to also become promoter and testimonial of this new way of conceiving development, both within the industrial context and within the broader global scenario. Enel, for example, is one of the 43 electricity companies that has signed a public appeal asking that the governments of the various countries should apply policies aiming at reducing harmful emissions, following the appeal launched by the United Nations. Additionally, within the UN context, it has been one of the main actors of partnerships between businesses and institutions aimed to reduce the so-called energy divide.

Enel helps create a low-carbon economy also by making its know-how and technologies available to companies. This is the principle at the basis of initiatives such as the agreement between Enel Energia and Acciaierie Bertoli Safau (ABS) in Italy or that signed in Mexico between Enel Green Power and General Motors (GM). In both cases business is centered on sustainability: ABS, the heavy industry leader that over the last few years has invested more than €50 million in projects for the greening of its productive process, has identified Enel as a partner that is capable of developing energy efficiency and a responsible use of resources. On the other hand, the American automotive giant GM assigned the construction of a plant consisting of 17 wind turbines that will power production at its manufacturing complex in Toluca, Mexico, thus reducing green house emissions, to EGP.