Stakeholder Engagement Tool: Toward a Renewable Energy Standard
Driven by our Mission, Voltalia places a strong emphasis on environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles. One of our focus is on enhancing stakeholder engagement through sustainable and responsible business practices.
In line with this vision, Voltalia is launching Engage – a new stakeholder engagement platform. This platform is specifically designed to foster collaboration and communication with stakeholders, promote transparency and build stronger relationships. Here’s everything you need to know about how Engage will revolutionize the way we engage with our stakeholders.
Improving day-to-day relations with stakeholders
Voltalia’s Engage project: A starting point for this initiative
This innovative tool is designed to streamline, standardize and manage stakeholder information across all Voltalia projects. By consolidating this data, we aim to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our decision-making processes, enabling us to make informed and strategic decisions in line with our commitment to sustainability and transparency.
Key Benefits:
- Centralized information: Access to a consolidated database containing a wealth of information and a detailed history of stakeholder relationships and interactions in a single location for easy retrieval and reference.
- Enhanced capabilities: Perform social assessments and generate automated reports.
Additional Features:
- Mobile Accessibility: The platform is conveniently accessible through a mobile application, allowing stakeholders to provide real-time updates even in remote areas with limited or no Internet connectivity. This ensures that data is always up to date, as it is designed to seamlessly synchronize once an Internet connection is restored.
- Integration with Google Earth: Integration with Google Earth for accurate mapping of stakeholder and project locations. This feature provides precise coordinates and visual representations of the area, improving situational awareness.
Feedback Portal: A key feature of the platform
We launched the pilot version of the grievance mechanism. We could say that the Feedback Portal is an improvement of the tool we had in place since 2022. The portal allows stakeholders to open tickets with complaints, reports or questions, anonymously or not. The feedback provided is then carefully managed internally, and stakeholders are kept informed of the actions taken in response to their input.
“The possibilities for emerging issues are endless. Through our feedback portal and increased local communication, we can learn about different situations where we can take action. For example, we can improve pollution control, ensure health, safety and security, and make sure we are aware of potential impacts on biodiversity and cultural heritage. Indirectly, Engage will bring us closer to achieving each performance standard, as well as the Equator Principles and many of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”
Brena Lacerda
Senior Community Engagement Analyst II at Voltalia
2024 Release: An enhanced stakeholder management tool
We created this upgraded tool to:
- Expand and standardize data collection processes to efficiently manage the increasing volume of data expected in the coming years due to the rapid growth of our business. This will improve our company’s project progress and support collective decision making.
- Minimize data loss by implementing a mobile application. In the event that a Voltalia Community Liaison Officer, who is responsible for ensuring the smooth running of projects by working closely with stakeholders, receives a verbal complaint from a resident, this system ensures that all information is captured, even in remote areas.
- Improve the effectiveness, quality, and timeliness of issue resolution.
"At Voltalia, we want to enhance our Stakeholder engagement practices with all our projects. We give ourselves the means to contribute to the daily dialog with local communities, while measuring our social impact. In 2023, 44% of MW under construction were accompanied by a Stakeholder engagement plan aligned with IFC standards and including our feedback portal. As our operations intensify in the coming years, we are committed to expanding these efforts with a 100% target by 2027”
Théo Montauriol
Sustainability Analyst at Voltalia
Indicators cover only non-designated countries as defined by the Equator Principles Association. Legislation in place in designated countries is considered sufficient for social and environmental management.
Engage: Aligned with the 8 International Financial Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards
The Engage project meets the requirements outlined of all eight IFC Performance Standards, with a particular focus on Standards 1, 2, 4 and 7, which Engage directly addresses. In particular, it fulfills the imperative to establish a transparent, confidential and reliable channel of communication with local communities.
The IFC Performance Standards are the most widely used international benchmark standards for identifying and managing environmental and social risks.
Scheduled to launch in August 2024 in several countries, including Brazil, France, Greece, Spain, Albania, South Africa, Kenya, Uzbekistan and the UK, this is just the beginning for Engage. We plan to expand the platform further in the first quarter of 2025, bringing even more countries into the fold.
