If you prefer to always view the website in English, please click here.
- This second phase, which is endowed with 13 million euros, is aimed at the most vulnerable groups, prioritising the areas most affected by the crisis, and the recovery of the Spanish business community.
- The initial endowment of the fund, presented in March, was 25 million euros, of which 12 have been invested in direct aid for the acquisition of medical equipment and donations to public and private institutions dedicated to fighting the pandemic.
In its commitment to society, Endesa is initiating the second phase of its Public Responsibility Plan, which is endowed with 25 million euros and was first activated in March when the unprecedented health emergency caused by Covid-19 demanded immediate aid measures in our country. The investment of twelve million euros in the direct purchase of medical equipment and donations to public and private institutions devoted to fighting the pandemic has contributed to alleviating that pressing initial need. But now there is a challenge that is just as important as the first: the socio-economic recovery of our country and urgent aid to the most affected and the most vulnerable.
To this end, Endesa has completed the design of the second phase of the plan, fulfilling the objectives outlined in the presentation of the first phase, which is based on two well-defined axes:
1. Endesa Families. Social inclusion is the objective, through projects to support families in vulnerable situations in the most affected territories. Endesa wants to minimise the risk of exclusion and for this it must continue helping to cover their basic needs. In the previous phase of the plan, almost 200,000 vulnerable families were cared for (with contributions from Endesa, its Foundation and employees through micro-donations).
- In this second phase, education will be taken into account as a basic need. Endesa is working to reduce the digital divide that opens between children and young people from different economic environments when education becomes virtual and specific tools are needed to access classrooms.
- Employment is another of the most pressing needs resulting from this crisis, so training to improve access to the labour market is another of the programme's aid channels. Programmes will be implemented to promote employability in vulnerable groups who are unemployed as a result of the pandemic, through accompaniment, training and skills development.
2. Endesa Activa. Economic revival. Measures to promote the reactivation of the Spanish business community.
- Advice, digitisation and financial support for SMEs is the cornerstone of our business fabric. The crisis has made clear the need to continue supporting the worst economically affected sectors as a result of the health crisis and lockdown, through the creation of new innovative ways of interacting.
- Specific local reactivation plans through collaborations with organisations and institutions specialising in individualised mentoring of companies that allow them to adapt to the post-Covid situation and ensure their survival. Endesa is deeply linked to areas that need, more than ever, specific plans adapted to the idiosyncrasies of each area.
Lessons learned
This second phase of Endesa's Public Responsibility Plan builds on what was learned and achieved in that initial phase in which, together with the Endesa Foundation, collaboration ties were established and strengthened with entities, institutions and other foundations in record time. According to Endesa CEO, José Bogas, “the ability of society to agilely join forces and turn the direction of its projects towards a different and supportive focus, should be one of those lessons learned that are here to stay. Life is unpredictable, true, but it takes an effort from everyone to overcome challenges, that is predictable".
With this second phase, the company wants to reinforce a message that is part of its global strategy: the need to leave no one behind, in any energy, economic or social transition that comes about. A just transition, sustainability, requires that everyone benefits from it.
Endesa underlines the importance of continuing to pay close attention to social needs so that the current situation does not make us think that it is possible to return to the situation prior to the state of alarm. Thousands of businesses, thousands of families, find themselves in a new and difficult scenario. Endesa has dealt with one of every two requests for an electricity contract suspension made during the state of alarm, specifically, 15,182 (55% of the national total) and 47% of the requests to defer payment of bills, allowing 14,406 of the company's customers to postpone payment for electricity during the worst of the crisis. In addition, the company voluntarily offered deferment of payment to domestic customers with a good payment history whose supply is legally protected, so they could have an easier time with their bills. Endesa also received 2,541 requests to access the bono social discounted tariff for self-employed workers whose economic activity has ceased or whose turnover has reduced by 75% due to the pandemic and who did not exceed a certain income level, which are the new conditions for access to the bono social during the state of alarm. And Endesa acted on 67,347 requests to modify the power rating to adapt the electrical power rating contracted by companies or the self-employed to the new conditions resulting from the crisis and thus reduce their fixed costs, which means that the company saw to 57% of the 117,494 adjustment requests made in the entire electricity sector in Spain.