In 2015, the United Nations adopted a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), outlining an agenda for peace, wellbeing, equality and sustainable development until 2030. A growing population combined with climate change means it is increasingly difficult to provide for these populations. The goals are more important than ever to a prosperous future for our planet.

The goals are ambitious and if achieved, would mean deep changes across the globe. Embracing the responsibility to our communities is a challenge and an opportunity for ACCIONA: the problems are tough, but striving to solve them means innovation, stronger ties with our communities and better decision-making across the board.

UN reporting guidelines recommend that companies prioritise reporting and pursuing SDGs where it has the greatest impact. ACCIONA’s work in infrastructure, water, and energy mean we have focused on five main goals, outlined in our 2022 Sustainability Report. Our activities are about more than reducing risk. We want to be leaders in shaping a future where all of us thrive.

Goal 6: clean water and sanitation

Goal 6 strives to ensure all people have access to clean and sustainably managed water, as well as sanitation.

€393,791 was invested in communicating and informing society and policy makers of the need to have a more efficient regulation of water management in 2022.

In 2022, ACCIONA treated 1,149 billion litres of water, compared to 1,033 billion litres In 2021, largely because of the opening and maintenance of the wastewater treatment plant in Gabal el Asfar, in Egypt, that grew the production of treated water by over 52%.

ACCIONA manages assets that produce new water for 28 million people in 85 plants around the world, operated with the most advanced technology and facilities that provide drinking water for 38 million people and sanitation for more than 76 million. In 2022, we produced 1.26 km3 of clean water, five times the amount consumed by the city of Madrid, and most of it was distributed in countries with high water stress. We design, build and operate drinking water treatment plants, wastewater purification plants, tertiary treatments for water reuse and reverse osmosis desalination plants.

Water Access to water is a basic resource on which ACCIONA focuses to cover the main needs of society. ACCIONA’s end-to-end management solutions for the whole water cycle are leaders in different parts of the world. Its activity focuses on serving citizens, ranging from water harvesting, desalination and drinking water purification, to water supply, treatment and return to the environment. It also manages integral services covering all the stages involved in water treatment.

In Asia and Oceana, ACCIONA treated 294 billion litres of water for their customers. ACCIONA reduced the use of freshwater (surface water, groundwater and local water) in water stressed areas by 12%.

ACCIONA develops its water management strategy taking into account its role as a manager of the end-to-end water cycle and as a consumer, as well as the availability of the resource, its quality and the balance of the ecosystems it is in. The company is a leader in the water treatment industry through its involvement in the design, construction and operation of drinking water treatment plants, wastewater treatment plants, reverse osmosis desalination plants and tertiary treatments for water reuse. It does so by strengthening its focus on services to cities. ACCIONA explores innovative solutions and applies the latest water treatment technology whilst boosting the digitalisation of the sector, which it deems essential to achieve more efficient and sustainable water treatment processes.

Goal 7: affordable and clean energy

Goal 7 outlines the need to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. Clean energy projects reduce the production of greenhouse gases that warm the atmosphere and other pollutants that cause health problems, such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and carbon monoxide, produced whilst burning fossil fuels.

ACCIONA is leading the way in this goal, being the world’s largest energy generator that deals solely in renewably energy projects. In 2022, ACCIONA had 11,826 MW of renewable capacity installed, generating 23,910 GWh across the globe; enough to power over 7.6 million homes for a year. In Australia, 2022 saw ACCIONA generate 1075 GWh of renewable energy. This renewable production avoided the emission into the atmosphere of 13.2 million tonnes of CO2. 

Mt Gellibrand Wind Farm is ACCIONA Energía's fourth wind farm in Australia. It has been fully operational since August 2018. This farm has the capacity of 132 MW and produces enough clean energy to power some 90,000 Australian homes.

The Waubra Wind Farm consists of 128 wind turbines, generating 192 MW of clean energy, it produces the energy equivalent to the demand from around 138,000 homes.

The Gunning Wind farm is a 46.5 MW wind farm in New South Wales. This farm consists of 31 wind turbines and provides enough clean energy to power 36,000 homes.

The Cathedral Rocks Wind Farm produces clean energy equivalent to the consumption of around 35,000 homes annually.

The Aldoga Solar Farm, has an anticipated construction commencement of the end of 2023/start of 2024. The Aldoga Solar Farm will create enough energy to power 220000 homes. For more information, visit the website. 

The Lilyvale photovoltaic solar plant in Queensland supplies 45,000 homes with clean energy.

The 1,026MW MacIntyre Wind Farm Precinct will be ACCIONA Energía’s biggest renewable energy facility and one of the largest onshore wind farms in the world. It is due to be completed by 2024 and will power some 700000 households with clean energy.

Mortlake Wind Farm was completed in mid 2023 and 117000 homes are powered with clean energy annually.

Nyaninyuk Wind Farm is a proposed renewable energy project in Western Victoria. This wind farm will power 210000 homes.

Royalla Solar Farm in Canberra, powers 4500 homes annually.

The Herries Range wind farm is a proposed wind farm that will power up to 700000 homes annually.

Goal 9: industry, innovation and infrastructure

Goal 9 involves building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and fostering innovation.

Sustainable infrastructure is at the heart of ACCIONA’s activities. We are currently working on multiple major urban infrastructure and transport infrastructure projects geared to help growth, with 87.5km of roads built worldwide in 2021 and other projects such as the Western Sydney Airport Airside Civil Works underway. We strive to improve sustainability on these projects through implementing circular economy strategies to reduce waste, with 87% of waste recovered in our operations in 2021. We also contributed over €123 million specifically to improve construction innovation across 82 projects, so that our techniques are always improving.

Goal 11: sustainable cities and communities

Goal 11 asks us to help make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, by improving access to housing, transport and green public spaces, and reducing the environmental impacts of cities.

ACCIONA is helping shape cities to pursue this goal, through work such as the level crossing removal projects in Australia, which has considerably improved road safety. Through our work on the São Paulo metro line 6 in Brazil, we also transported 600,000 passengers each day on public transport. Through these sustainable infrastructure projects and our renewables, we also avoided 1,454 tonnes of nitrous oxides, 2,033 tonnes of sulphur oxides and 28 tonnes of particulate matter through Spanish projects alone, all of which significantly worsen health outcomes.

Goal 13: climate action

Goal 13 demands urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, by strengthening resilience and significantly increasing mitigation activities.

ACCIONA’s top priority is embracing the fight against climate change. We are focused on both mitigation (e.g. through our clean energy projects) and adaptation (e.g. strengthening access to resilient water sources in many countries). Climate action considerations are also integrated throughout our internal activities. In 2021, we officially ratified our commitment to our circular economy strategy, aimed at reducing waste and consumption, thus reducing energy-related emissions from the production of goods and services. Thanks to these efforts, we avoided over 13 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalents (greenhouse gases) in 2021.

 

To find out more about ACCIONA’s commitment to sustainability, check out our Sustainability Report for 2021.

 

Source:

• https://sdgs.un.org/goals