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Today, Iberdrola has held its Solidarity Conference in which the group's chairman, Ignacio Galán, presented the Iberdrola Solidarity Awards in recognition of the work carried out by some of the associations that work with the company.

The Tomillo Foundation received the End Poverty Award for its project in the Madrid neighbourhood of Los Olivos, which promotes the proper education and development of children and young people with various difficulties. The Spanish Association of the Deaf and Blind (Asocide) was recognised in the Reduce Inequality category for its work in assisting the integration of people with this type of functional diversity by providing interpretation and support services in their daily lives.

The Iberdrola Health and Wellbeing Prize was awarded jointly to Proyecto Hombre and Aspanion. In this way, the company wished to recognise the work carried out by both organisations in the field of children's health, in the case of Aspanion, for the support they provide to the families of child patients in Valencia’s La Fe Hospital, and in the case of Proyecto Hombre for its drug and alcohol addiction treatments and its work on preventing the abuse of new technologies by young people.

The Iberdrola Solidarity Conference was inspired by the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). For this reason, Iberdrola’s chairman and representatives from the participating associations were accompanied by the Spanish Government's High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Cristina Gallach.

During his speech, Ignacio Galán stressed the contribution of public and private organisations towards fulfilling the 2030 Agenda: “The link between business and society must be unbreakable," he said. Furthermore, the chairman of Iberdrola described social responsibility as a "fundamental part" of the company's strategy and highlighted the role of companies as a "force for social change". To this end, he gave the example of Iberdrola's Social Programme, which since its launch eight years ago, has promoted over 500 initiatives in areas such as child protection, social inclusion and in improving the living conditions of sick people, which has benefited over 200,000 people.  

As its chairman recalled, Iberdrola has incorporated the SDG into its strategy and focuses its efforts on two of them: affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all (SDG 7) and urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (SDG 13).

Moreover, the company actively encourages multilateral partnerships to achieve the proposed goals (SDG 17) and it contributes to fulfilling other objectives: end poverty (SDG 1), healthy lives and well-being (SDG 3), gender equality (SDG 5), inclusive and sustainable economic growth (SDG 8), reduce inequalities (SDG 10), inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11) conserve and protect ecosystems (SDG 14 and 15).

For her part, Cristina Gallach highlighted "the importance of the work of the social organisations that contribute to the development and improvement in the quality of life of the most vulnerable people around the world”.

The Government's High Commissioner for Agenda 2030 added: "Recognising the excellent work done by civil society organisations is undoubtedly even more compelling since the 2008 financial crisis. According to a study, the importance of the Third Sector in Spain is reflected in the almost 30,000 entities involved in it, in the more than seven million people who are served annually, in the 10.5 billion euros they manage and in the more than two million people, including volunteers and employees, who work daily in it.”

Objective: to consolidate alliances to advance the 2030 Agenda

The Iberdrola Solidarity Conference also included five working groups that met throughout the morning to analyse specific points of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Specifically, around 60 members of organisations such as ActionAid, Save the Children, the Spanish United Nations Global Compact Network, the Spanish Cancer Association (AECC) and the Down Syndrome Foundation of Madrid, among others, discussed:

• End child poverty (SDG 1): according to the National Statistics Institute, over 2.6 million children in Spain (31.3%) are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. The participants in this group analysed the key role of education and the promotion of protective spaces for these groups.

• Reduce inequality within and among countries (SDG 10): the group focused on social inclusion for people with disabilities, in which both personal autonomy –and closely related labour inclusion– play a fundamental role.

• Healthy lives and well-being (SDG 3): the participants studied this point from two perspectives: the well-being of children and their families, and the prevention and treatment of addictions. In the first case, they stressed the importance of psychosocial support for people around children with serious illnesses, while in the second they worked on the challenge of including the gender perspective in the problem of addictions, as well as the need to monitor new pathologies derived from the use of technologies.

• Global partnerships to achieve sustainable goals (SDG 17): the group identified the 2030 Agenda "as the most important global challenge" and demanded financial resources to build not only alliances but also technical and institutional capacities, reinforced by the drive for innovation.

Representatives of Iberdrola also took part in all the groups; the Foundation made a commitment to reinforcing its contribution to the different points by working closely with associations and charitable organisations. Thus, by building alliances, the company will continue to moving towards fulfilling the United Nations 2030 Agenda.

As part of the Iberdrola Solidarity Conference, the company organised a charity market in its corporate offices in Madrid. The company's employees took part and their contributions will go to the Down Occupational Centre in Madrid.

About Iberdrola

Iberdrola is a global energy leader, the number one producer of wind power, and one of the world’s biggest electricity utilities by market capitalisation. The group is present in numerous countries and supplies energy to over 100 million people mainly in Spain, the United Kingdom (Scottish Power), the USA (AVANGRID), Brazil (Neoenergia) and Mexico. With a workforce of 34,000 and assets in excess of €110 billion, it posted revenues of over €31.263 billion and a net profit of €2.804 billion in 2017.

Iberdrola is leading the transition towards a sustainable energy model through investments in renewable energy, smart grids, large-scale energy storage and digital transformation, offering the most advanced products and services to its customers. Thanks to its commitment to clean energy, Iberdrola is one of the companies with the lowest emissions and an international benchmark for its contribution to the fight against climate change and for sustainability.