Acciona S A : - Jose Manuel Entrecanales calls for standards to ensure access to clean energy in underprivileged areas in Davos 2020
January 23, 2020 at 09:54 am EST
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Jose Manuel Entrecanales, CEO and chairman of ACCIONA, spoke today about the need for sustainable and scalable business models that will contribute to ensuring access to clean energy in disadvantaged and underprivileged communities of the world.
In the context of the World Economic Forum in Davos, ACCIONA's Chairman and CEO took part today in a round table discussion entitled 'Providing clean energy in fragile contexts', alongside Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and Vincent Biruta, Rwanda's Foreign Minister, among others.
The invited panelists discussed how investing in energy infrastructure is an important part of providing access to clean electricity in these areas, while helping reduce the environmental impact of refugee camps and places with very high poverty rates.
'A philanthropic approach is needed, but it can only solve so much', Entrecanales pointed out. 'To fully address this challenge, an initial business model needs to be developed, which proves self-sustaining. Then, it will be able to grow naturally'.
Jose Manuel Entrecanales referred to the experience of acciona.org in this subject. ACCIONA's international foundation provides clean energy and water services in remote areas of Peru, Mexico and Panama, and participates in refugee programs in places such as Ethiopia. 'In Latin America, we have managed to create a basic business model. We started these projects with a philanthropic approach, but we were then able to transform them into social enterprises that proved self-financing, often counting on cooperation from governments'.
'Around one billion people are today lacking energy access. We need to work on developing effective and scalable models to combat this', Entrecanales concluded.
Acciona, S.A. is a building and public works group organized around five areas of activity:
- design, construction and maintenance of infrastructures and buildings: roads, highways, tunnels, railroads, hydraulic facilities, wastewater processing plants, parking lots, hospitals, residences, etc.;
- energy services: production of electricity (wind, water, solar, and biomass), engineering and construction of wind power plants, production of aero-generators and bio-diesel fuel;
- water environmental services: design, construction and management of desalination units, distribution of potable water, wastewater treatment, etc.;
- services: cleaning services (streets, hospitals, etc.), airport handling services, collection and processing of wastes, logistics services, etc.;
- other: fund management, securities brokerage services, wine production, etc.