Seeding energies, the value of communities
Looking constantly and proactively to the needs and priorities of the company allows taking up new challenges and redefining an increasingly competitive business model, developing new strategies and innovating processes and the offer to customers. Access to energy as a flywheel for local development is taking on today increasingly diverse and innovative forms applicable to every type of context.
The search for “shared value” for the company and all its stakeholders represents an opportunity to combine competitiveness and the creation of social value in the long term, and this is the path that Enel has chosen for its activities in recent years. The inclusion of stakeholders, therefore, becomes a key moment to achieve win-win solutions for the company and for society.
The model of creating shared value
In keeping with these premises, since 2015, Enel has adopted a model for “creating shared value” (CSV): an approach that integrates the socio-environmental factors in all phases of business processes.
“In 2016, Enel implemented 320 applications of the CSV model in different stages of the value chain: from the development of business, through engineering and construction, to management and maintenance. ”
Seeding Energies - Sustainability Report 2016
Everything is implemented in the various geographical contexts of the Enel Group, both those industrially mature such as Italy and Spain, and emerging realities such as Latin America and South Africa: spanning from the Torrevaldaliga Nord plant in Civitavecchia to the power grids in the Brazilian State of Goiás, from the thermoelectric power plant at Las Salinas, in the Canary Islands, to the installation of electronic meters in poor neighborhoods in Buenos Aires.
In 2016, Enel signed a strategic partnership with the Shared Value Initiative, the international network led by Mark Kramer, founder, together with Professor Michael Porter, of the CSV (Creating Shared Value) model on which Enel's approach is based.
The engagement of communities and the SDGs
Enel's approach is perfectly reflected in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the UN 2030 Agenda. In particular, the attention to the inclusion and engagement of local communities involves three of the four goals for which Enel has made a formal commitment: to ensure access to clean and affordable energy (SDG 7), to promote employment and inclusive economic growth (SDG 8), and to support quality educational projects (SDG 4).
“The keyword is increasingly more “co-creation”: projects are defined and implemented together with communities to be calibrated to the specific characteristics of the local territory”
Seeding Energies - Sustainability Report 2016
As regards access to energy (SDG 7) suffice it to mention the project Rural Electrification with Liter of Light, launched in South Africa in collaboration with the international NGO Liter of Light, made it possible to teach 60 young people how to make solar power systems by recycling waste materials such as plastic bottles. Firstly, this favours access to energy also by marginal communities; it also promotes knowledge and the responsible use of renewable energy sources and sets in motion a virtuous circle for the local economy.
“Cadena Productivas” is instead an excellent example of the commitment to the pursuit of SDG 8. It was launched in Colombia to develop the local cocoa and coffee agro-industrial sector by improving farming techniques and consolidating trade: it is an initiative to reduce the emigration of the local population and to engage communities in a long-term social and economic development programme.
Supporting education (SDG 4) is the subject of the “Tech Challenge” project which is being developed in Madrid. It is aimed at teachers and students between 12 and 16 years to increase the knowledge in the field of technology and, in particular, in the field of robotics: the knowledge acquired - and especially the formative wealth - will be useful to young people for their future inclusion in the job market, perhaps precisely at Endesa, the large Spanish company of the Enel Group.
The activity of the Enel Cuore non-profit association, founded in 2003 to promote the commitment in field of social solidarity, is continuing. There are numerous projects focused on specific topics of great relevance, such as the social inclusion of elderly people and the reception of unaccompanied foreign minors in Italy.
Ambitious goals
With its 900 projects and initiatives and over 6 million beneficiaries in the various countries where it is present, Enel sets increasingly more ambitious goals. The 2017-2019 Sustainability Plan provides for new goals, among which reaching, by 2020, 3 million beneficiaries for access to energy, mainly in Africa, Asia and Latin America, 1.5 million beneficiaries as regards social and economic development and 400,000 people for quality education.
Experience shows that it is important for the future that companies completely review their operational processes, reconsidering their goals with longer term prospects. This is the only way to genuinely create shared value.