back

ACCIONA promotes women's leadership in climate mitigation through Homeward Bound program

Corporative
5 of November, 2019
  • The largest ever female expedition, including 100 women from 35 countries, will travel to Antarctica on the 200th anniversary of the continent’s discovery.
  • This year, 47 Australian female scientists will take part in the Antarctica expedition.

ACCIONA is sponsoring the fourth edition of Homeward Bound (HB04), an international leadership and empowerment program for women scientists tackling the climate crisis. The HB04 participants are currently taking part in a one-year training and research program that will finalize with an expedition to Antarctica. The group will depart from Ushuaia (Argentina) on 22nd November and return on 10th December 2019.

Homeward Bound, an originally Australian initiative founded by Fabian Dattner, will this year welcome the participation of 47 Australian female professionals, which takes the total number of scientists from Australia to partake in the program to over 150 since its creation.

This year, the expedition will be the largest in numbers to date, with a hundred women from 35 countries taking part. This HB04 edition also coincides with the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the discovery of Antarctica.

ACCIONA is a global partner of the Homeward Bound initiative, through which the company aims to foster women's leadership, global sustainability and climate mitigation. Since its incorporation as a global partner three years ago, ACCIONA has encouraged 400 women to participate in the program.

Homeward Bound’s goal is to create an international network of 1,000 prominent female professionals working in different areas of STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) over a ten-year period, to foster collaboration on projects in various scientific and geographical areas. Creating this network will allow these female scientists to gain visibility worldwide, while promoting women's leadership in the ongoing global climate fight.

The one-year initiative includes training programs with specialist mentors in leadership, strategy, communication and visibility, based on an evaluation of personal development. The mentors selected for HB04 include world-renowned figures such as the architect of the Paris Agreement, Christiana Figueres, primatologist Jane Goodall, and Musimbi Kanyoro, CEO and president of the Global Fund for Women.

Homeward Bound also encourages team members to create networking opportunities between participants of past and present editions of the expedition. In this way, the scientists will hopefully build personal and professional ties that may enrich their teamwork.

The program concludes with a three-week expedition to the Antarctic, where the female scientists will work together gathering information on the impact that global warming is having on the continent and investigating possible solutions.