[4.6] Social and Relationship Capital

Stakeholder engagement

Iberdrola works to increasingly engage its Stakeholders in all of the company’s activities and operations. Throughout the value chain, Iberdrola interacts with millions of people and thousands of organisations that make up it social and relationship capital, and thus a fundamental element for the sustainable performance of the company.

To meet its goals in this area, Iberdrola has a Global Stakeholder Engagement Model which, based on the AA1000 Stakeholder Engagement Standard 2015, ensures that all areas and businesses of Iberdrola have an in-depth understanding of their Stakeholders; have suitable channels of communication therewith; analyse their expectations (with the risks and opportunities thereof); and establish appropriate action plans with specific related impacts.

Key figures

Through its Stakeholder Engagement Model, Iberdrola has detected:

• 70 categories of sub-stakeholders
• More than 40 different channels of communication, increasingly digital.
• More than one hundred relevant issues, with numerous related plans.
• Around thirty emerging trends.

The main issues and trends guide the company in its decisions and form part of Iberdrola’s CSR Plan “Responsible Energy for People”. And also aligned with the latest materiality study performed by an independent firm based on external information sources.

Materiality matrix 2019

Good Practices

Community support and electricity access programmes

Foundations of the Iberdrola group

Activities 2019

• berdrola has strengthened the operation of its foundations in Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil and Mexico.
• Overall investment dedicated to activities in all countries in 2019 increased to a total of €9.2 million.
• A new Master Plan has been prepared for the 2018-2021 period, in order to contribute to sustainable development.
• The industry areas have been consolidated, but prioritising the impact on the specific targets of the SDGs.
• In the Training area, there is strengthening of the promotion of equal opportunities through the Social Assistance programme, with more than 80,000 beneficiaries.
• In Art and Culture, there are three major programmes:
  • Lighting: The most important have been the Cathedral of Santiago (in progress) and the Grand Staircase of the General Navy Headquarters (Spain), the National Museum of Art (Mexico), the illumination of the façade of the Cascudo Memorial Chamber (Brazil) and the Luces de Esperanza (Lights of Hope) project in Mexico.
  • Restoration: Includes the Gabinete de descanso de los Reyes (Their Majesties’ Retiring Room) (Prado Museum), the Altarpiece of Villarmentero de Campos and the church of San Martín de Castañeda in Spain.
  • Museums: Promote the restoration and exhibition of works, including: El Prado in the Streets (Prado Museum), Sorolla en pequeño formato, Sorolla Dibujante (Sorolla Museum).
• Biodiversity and climate change includes the MIGRA program to protect birds in danger of extinction, the LIFE project with SEO Birdlife in Spain, Sussex Wildlife Trust (in the United Kingdom), National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) at Avangrid, the Cañón de Fernández Project (Mexico) and the CORALIZAR project in Brazil.
• In the area of Cooperation and Solidarity, there have been more than 70 partnerships in the five countries with an impact on more than 100,000 people in the fight against child poverty, the independence of people with disabilities and serious illnesses, with special attention on the most vulnerable groups: infants and youth.

Foundation Programs 2019

Corporate reputation

Soundness and strength of the brand

• Management of the brand so that it transmits the essence of the Iberdrola group’s Purpose and reflects the company’s strategy to commit to the environment and to Sustainable Development.
• Consolidation of an international brand, strengthening communication and alignment under a single brand positioning strategy in the countries in which the company operates.

Evolution of the digital ecosystem

• Offer of useful and dynamic information, with messages adapted to each stakeholder.
• Facilitate direct interaction with our stakeholders, overcoming barriers and making use of existing synergies.

Iberdrola on social media and the internet:

Reputation

• Iberdrola considers reputation to be an intangible asset of great value, which influences aspects as important as the attraction and retention of talent, business relations with customers, valuation of the company in the capital markets, and integration within the communities in which it does business, and therefore the overall performance of the company.
• What Iberdrola currently is, does, communicates or how it engages its Stakeholders gives rise therein to judgements, attitudes and behaviours, which go into making up the company’s global reputation, which is also influenced by the social perception of the electricity sector.
• Iberdrola therefore manages and constantly measures its reputation with a dual objective:
  To bring out opportunities that trigger favourable behaviour towards the company.
  To minimise and mitigate reputational risks inherent in its activities.
  • Management: Reputation is mainly managed through two elements:
  • Proactive management of the Stakeholders through the Stakeholder Engagement Model, which allows one to know expectations and needs, to analyse risks (including reputational risks) and to establish specific action plans, as explained at the beginning of this section.
  • The communication plans, the Sustainable Development Plan and numerous other specific actions focused on each of the company’s eight Stakeholder groups.
  • Measurement: Reputation is monitored and measured through a specific scoresheet that includes variables from reputational rankings, Stakeholder surveys and various sustainability indexes, among other things.
• Iberdrola reviews and updates its Reputational Risk Framework Policy, which is the main reference point for the control and management of this risk, on an annual basis. The company also has internal processes that allow it to respond to potential reputational crises.