Sustainability & transparency: our model at the BIF
There is no sustainability without integrity and transparency. At the national event of the Business Integrity Forum (BIF), organised by Transparency International Italia at the San Fedele Auditorium in Milan, Enel has presented its business model, consisting of a set of good practices that combine business performance with ethics, transparency and the fight against corruption, as well as with the respect for human rights and safety.
Created with the aim of helping small and medium-sized enterprises to adopt instruments to combat corruption and illegal behavior in their business, the BIF has also involved many leading companies in Italy, with the support of our Group from the very beginning. It has been a two-year-long effort started in 2016 by Transparency International Italia, the national chapter of the largest global non-governmental organisation committed to these issues.
The Enel model was presented by Marina Migliorato, Head of Sustainability, Innovation & Stakeholder Engagement at Enel, as she introduced the debate on “The Companies of the Business Integrity Forum: Best Practices, New Challenges and CSR.”
“The effectiveness and efficiency of business processes depend largely on stable and constructive relationships with stakeholders. They require the ability to engage in a synergic manner with local communities, preventing and managing socio-environmental impacts”
– Marina Migliorato, Head Sustainability Innovation & Stakeholder Engagement
We call this approach “Open Innovability®”: an opening toward the outside world through which to establish partnerships across the globe with local organisations, businesses, universities, international associations and NGOs, based on the sharing of clear ethical principles. It is a model fully in line with the United Nations Global Compact, of which our Group is an active member since 2004 with the aim of developing a greater integration of sustainability in the company’s strategic decisions.
From the Integrity Kit to the Global Compliance Program
From the point of view of transparency and anti-corruption measures, many concrete steps have already been made. First of all, the production of an Integrity Kit for SMEs, which was launched in October 2016. It is composed of three main tools: a Charter of General Ethical Principles, a guide to Whistleblowing Systems and the Integrity Pact between contracting authority and supplier aimed at disseminating a culture of legality throughout the supply chain. The bodies in charge of these tasks at Enel are the Compliance (Legal and Corporate Affairs) and Sustainability, Innovation & Stakeholder Engagement (Innovation and Sustainability) units, which have also drawn up a simplified version of the kit, called “Integrity Guidance LATAM,” putting it at the disposal of the suppliers of the Group’s main companies in 5 South American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru).
The various ethical instruments of the Group include two other tools. One is the conformity certification of the anti-corruption management system under the international standard UNI ISO 37001. The other is the implementation of the principles of the Enel Global Compliance Program in risk prevention models at a national level (among which particular importance is attached to corruption offenses, corporate offenses, money laundering, violations of rules on workplace safety or environmental offenses).
“Through listening and the active involvement of all stakeholders and the rational use of resources, we seek to promote synergy between social and economic progress, in a shared value perspective”
– Marina Migliorato, Head Sustainability Innovation & Stakeholder Engagement
Transparency inside and outside the supply chain
In the period from October 2016 to August 2017, an experimental phase involving only the companies participating in the BIF was launched. They were engaged in promoting the Integrity Kit through a series of targeted initiatives. The results have been more than encouraging: at the end of January, the online kit was downloaded by 739 suppliers of leading companies participating in the Business Integrity Forum, of which 250 belonging to the Enel supply chain. At the national event in Milan, our Group also stressed the importance of the relationship between integrity and sustainability.