Enel Green Power stands side by side with young people to make the future possible

Anyone still convinced that today’s young people are passive, jaded and lacking in ideals should read the Youth4Climate Manifesto, a document that will probably go down in history as evidence not only of the active commitment, but also of the level of scientific and environmental awareness of new generations, who also have the most vested interest in the future of our planet. The manifesto, which on the occasion of COP26 in Glasgow was sent to governments and political decision-makers all over the world, was drafted during the Pre-COP, the series of preliminary events held in Milan with the primary goal of including young people in environmental choices. The youth summit Youth4Climate: Driving Ambition – in which Salvatore Bernabei, CEO of Enel Green Power took part – gave approximately 400 youngsters aged between 18 and 29, coming from all over the world, the opportunity to meet politicians, interview CEOs, ask questions and obtain useful insights that were later included in the Manifesto. The energy of youth The Pre-COP was also the chance for Enel Green Power to sit down with young people in various events, confirming the substantial attention that the company dedicates to the new generations by listening to them, supporting them and guiding them with sound information, providing them with all the tools they need, and sometimes – why not? – even offering them some fun. We already know that the current generation has the highest number of young people in the history of the planet: in 2030, over half of the world’s population will be under 35. Thus, we consider it more important than ever to immediately engage with the people who will be the protagonists of tomorrow: our actions today, will define the coming decades. Together with younger generations, we want to change the world and, in particular, we want to work with them to transform energy: the current energy transition will lead us in the near future to a new, more sustainable model, which will benefit young people first and foremost. “The young are the protagonists of tomorrow and the key to achieving change. We must work together and mobilize the resources required to accelerate electrification and make energy cleaner, safer and fairer all over the world. Young people are asking us to advance the energy transition, and to play an active part in it themselves, as a huge opportunity in terms of jobs, wellbeing, health and equality. It is our duty to enable them to lead the change, with bottom-up initiatives and by encouraging them to take part in political dialogue, so they can truly feel ownership over their own future.” Salvatore Bernabei, CEO of Enel Green Power On the artistic front, but always with an eye to sustainability, EGP is supporting the American singer-songwriter AY Young, a high-profile personality in contemporary music, who powers his concerts using renewable sources and is working on an album of 17 songs, one for each of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For these reasons he was chosen by the United Nations as one of the 17 young faces of the fight against climate change. In Milan, AY Young took part in a large concert organized in collaboration with EGP. Many consider his song We Can Change The World, with its undeniable emotional charge, the anthem of the new generations, and a hymn to sustainability. Support for training Our long and established commitment to the younger generations is tangible in a wide range of projects we develop for training, education and knowledge building about renewable energies. In particular, we have launched a company volunteer program called Connecting Energies, through which, for example, we have offered young people in Colombia a career guidance course aimed mainly at professions in the energy sector. Similarly, in Ventanilla in Peru we have organized industrial electricity courses for students at a technical college: 90% of them have gone on to find jobs in companies that collaborate with the Enel Group. In Italy and in Greece, meanwhile, we have invited students of different ages to take part in awareness-raising initiatives about sustainable development and the circular economy, using entertainment tools such as games and animation videos. The most original project is perhaps the one we created in Stipa Nayáa, in Mexico: here, the nacelle of a decommissioned wind turbine has been transformed into a training center focused on wind technology, for current and potential engineering students specializing in renewable energies. In Africa, as part of the RES4Africa Foundation’s Micro-Grid Academy, we launched the Young Talent of The Year Award: a prize for young creative talents in the context of the energy transition. This year, the winning projects are three systems powered by solar energy: a cold room for farmers, an electric tricycle, and a trailer that provides both heating and lighting to street food vendors. Our most recent initiative was launched at the end of September in Romania, in collaboration with the Engineering faculty at the Babeș-Bolyai University. It includes a laboratory for advanced training on renewable energies and photovoltaic systems in particular. Finally, to help young people learn through play we have also launched the Energy Remix game, a simulation in which, by answering questions about renewable sources, players can earn credits to then build virtual energy plants that power cities in the most sustainable way possible. These are just some examples of the huge potential the new generations have, and of how interested they are in leveraging it. In 2020, indeed, we commissioned a survey by Istituto Piepoli, which revealed that young Italians are more concerned than adults about climate change, but also have more faith that something can be done to remedy it. These are the young people who sing We Can Change the World.

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Enel Green Power stands side by side with young people to make the future possible

Enel Green Power stands side by side with young people to make the future possible

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