#EnelUp4Education
“To follow virtue and knowledge,” wrote Dante Alighieri, is the reason we come into this world. Knowledge is one of the most important assets a person can have and is indispensable for becoming an aware citizen in today’s society, as well as for personal and professional growth.
Knowledge can be nurtured by education and training, without which a society may not be able to achieve the goal of sustainable and inclusive development. For this reason, the United Nations included “Quality Education” in its list of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This was in order to “Ensure inclusive and equitable, quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” That’s because there is no sustainability without knowledge and, most importantly, because social sustainability means making sure no one is left behind.
Our Group has built its strategy on the UN’s SDGs and is at the forefront when it comes to promoting a form of energy that is equally important – knowledge. We are doing this through education and training initiatives that concern primarily civil society, with a particular focus on the very young. The goal is to promote a culture of sustainability as a driver of economic development and the construction of sustainable societies. We also want to offer those youngsters preparing to enter the world of work a full and mature awareness of the skills required for today’s employment market. Finally, for those who are already employed in the electricity sector and elsewhere, we are working to raise awareness of the new scenarios and opportunities that the energy transition offers.
More specifically, our commitment is evident in joint projects with external partners, with various different goals. These include: raising awareness in communities about the issues outlined in the 2030 Agenda, pathways for startups capable of developing innovative solutions, professional training courses in the electricity sector, the prevention of bullying and cyberbullying, countering the phenomenon of students dropping out of school, and integrating educational activities with workshop experiences.
Our commitment is organized in line with the national RiGenerazione Scuola plan promoted by the Ministry of Education to facilitate an ecological and cultural transition for schools. The project aims to revitalize the school’s role in instilling values, teaching that development can only be sustainable if it meets the needs of present generations without compromising future ones.
A world to discover
Current projects
In this section, you can find out more about our active projects.
The frequent misalignment between academic training and the professional skills required to work in a company is one of the main problems young people face when entering the working world upon finishing their education. Our Group wants to curb this problem with protocol agreements, signed by industries and companies, aimed at the creation of Higher Education and Research Apprenticeships. The apprenticeships provide a path that integrates learning in the classroom with real work experience. Through the program, students in their third year of a three-year Bachelor’s degree program in STEM subjects alternate between lessons and study and technical and vocational on-the-job training, becoming immediately familiar with the knowledge and skills required by the ongoing energy transition and the technological and digital transformation of work processes.
Gradually abandoning fossil-based energy production in favor of new models centered around the use of renewable resources, such as solar energy, is one of the biggest and most important pillars of the energy transition. A mission whose success cannot be separated from the involvement of people and local communities, which must be placed at the center of any project aimed at the sustainable growth of society. With this in mind, we have inaugurated a professional training course for photovoltaic panel installers, in collaboration with the service company CNA Sostenibile. The objective is to provide workers in the thermoelectric industry in Civitavecchia and Montalto with the initial training necessary to work in construction sites dedicated to building solar photovoltaic systems.
Can a person’s passion for cycling and their determination to involve other colleagues give rise to a new project with an international scope? That is exactly what happened with CReW (Enel Cycle, Run & Walk Challenge), the company platform that incentivizes and values virtuous behaviors in the area of mobility. In 2022, CreW reached 18 countries, with 145 clubs and more than 2,500 participating colleagues: not just cyclists, but also people who walk or run to work. It is an initiative that has generated astonishing numbers. Collectively the members have traveled 1.5 million kilometers, about 40 times around the world, generating an overall savings in terms of emissions equivalent to nearly 260 million tons of carbon dioxide. Walking or biking to work means consuming less fuel, limiting the emissions into the air of pollutants such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), and contributing to the fight against climate change. But there are other numerous benefits that come along with projects like CReW. Thanks to their visibility, in addition to reducing city traffic and noise pollution, these initiatives also raise community awareness regarding the issues of sustainable mobility and generate economic and health benefits for participants as well as cleaner air for fellow citizens.
Energie per Crescere (Energy for Growth) with #EnelOpenSchool is a project we launched in collaboration with the training organization ELIS with the aim of bringing new generations closer to the working world and creating concrete and immediate job opportunities at our Group’s partner companies. Through theoretical and practical courses, we train new certified professionals who can contribute to the development of renewables in Italy and to the creation of smart, resilient and flexible grids able to facilitate the energy transition.
The experimental project promoted by Helpcode Italia (an organization that has been involved in child protection projects since 1988), with our support, consists of remotely usable and multi-disciplinary workshop paths dedicated to primary and lower secondary school institutions. The initiative consists of a range of educational proposals to supplement and enhance traditional school curricula. Each activity, in constant coordination and collaboration with teachers, is designed to be fully adaptable to concrete school and classroom needs.
The workshops, which are created and run by Helpcode educators, also benefit from the voluntary involvement – for the very first time in remote form – of our colleagues in the role of tutors. By using exploration, interaction and socialization, they will accompany the youngsters as they learn about global citizenship, sustainability and the digital world.
The pilot project begins at the Viale San Marco School in Mestre and involves classes in the primary cycle with 62 workshops divided into three learning pathways:
- Digital literacy – Learning to code
- Active rights and participation – The algorithm of rights
- Environmental sustainability – Life beyond plastic
Since 2018 we have been supporting the campaign by the Italian Parents’ Movement (MOIGE) called Young Ambassadors for Digital Citizenship in order to counter the phenomena of bullying and cyberbullying in all their forms. The project is based on actions of a preventative nature to protect and educate minors and involves families, schools, national institutions and local authorities.
The initiative aims to raise awareness of the safe use of social media and the issue of fake news, and to make cities safer, more inclusive and sustainable. This is in line with SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) which are part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda. In 2021 the project is set to involve 62,500 students,1,250 young Digital Citizenship Ambassadors, 1,250 teachers trained through the online platform and meetings at school and 125,000 parents who will be informed through webinars and educational material.
Find out more about the project Digital Citizenship
Founded in Switzerland in 2017 as the first ever coding academy for refugees, Powercoders has today extended its scope to include the so-called NEET category (people who are Not in Education, Employment or Training).
The aim is to promote equal opportunities and job placement, a goal that also goes some way to meeting companies’ need to find IT professionals on the market.
We became involved in the project in 2022 and we proposed to the other Italian partners (UNHCR – the UN High Commission for Refugees, Lenovo and the founding members of the Reale Foundation and Fondazione Italiana Accenture) t0 extend participation to young people and women excluded from employment as a result of the pandemic crisis. The partners’ positive response increased the number of participants in Powercoders Italy to 150, and the project is now fully in line with the goals of inclusion, valuing cultural diversity, promoting talent and equal opportunities that our Group pursues.
The program is organized in three phases. The first is dedicated to a skills assessment of the participants in order to identify the most appropriate training path for each one. This is followed by a 3-month intensive course focused on practicing and applying the newly developed skills in line with the “learning by doing” approach. Once the training period has been completed, the students are then integrated into the workplace through paid internships for 6 to 12 months at established companies.
The School4Life project was launched in partnership with Elis to reduce school dropout rates and educational poverty by encouraging young people to study STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), providing training and guiding them towards the professions of the future. Through an active learning approach involving the participation of “career masters”, role models and mentors from Enel, students attended technical and orientation meetings, followed by practical workshops and other activities to help them acquire technical and transferable skills.
Following the success of the pilot project, which reached almost 2000 students at 25 schools, the second edition was launched for the 2021-2022 academic year. School4Life 2.0 will last for two years and will benefit from the involvement of a further 10 large Italian companies. The goal is to involve a total of 15,000 students from more than 600 schools all over Italy, with a particular focus on regions where school dropout rates are higher.
Training programs for teachers, webinars for parents and the “We’re staying” helpdesk to help respond to at-risk situations are the tools for the adults who accompany these young people on their educational journeys.
Small and medium-sized businesses are the very heart of the Italian economy and therefore represent strategic partners for our Group and indispensable players in the acceleration of Italy’s energy transition process.
It is precisely to support the sustainable growth path of our supply chain that we launched the first edition of the Supplier Development Program, which aims to help our partner companies become even more solid, innovative and digital. This program is open to all our small and medium-sized suppliers that have distinguished themselves for their achievements in terms of quality, safety, fairness and attention paid to the dual concept of innovation-sustainability. The program is designed to support these businesses during their processes of sustainable, technological and skills development.
In our Group, diversity is not seen as an obstacle but rather as a resource capable of generating innovation and growth. In line with this view, in 2020 we began the Value for Disability project, with the aim of increasing our support for the inclusion of people with disabilities who work in our Group, and helping them to reach their full potential.
At present, there are around 2,200 people with disabilities working for our Group, and 80% of them reside in Italy. For them we have created and are implementing several initiatives aimed at increasing their well-being in the workplace through the use of information aids and solutions related to digital accessibility to make the completion of their daily activities easier.
The WE project, which we support, was launched by the Sustainable Development School. It creates learning pathways with the goal of promoting education for the world’s citizens. It’s an opportunity for everyone to reflect on their own lifestyles and try to develop innovative economic, social and environmental processes in the direction of a new and positive balance.
WE is organized into two complementary forms of action:
#Cities: together with mayors, universities, school head teachers, local authorities, sustainable education projects in neighborhoods in cities capable of viewing schools as the drivers of the revival of communities.
#Communities: to promote the first virtual sustainability hub, a routing node for knowledge, skills and data at the service of everyone. Through inspirational, educational and narrative contributions, experts from various fields of human activity exclusively explain how they perceive change, the present and the future. At the so-called “Community Hubs,” which are also supported by local universities, those taking part will develop sustainable development ideas for the community to implement for real with the collaboration of other stakeholders.
The project aims to contribute to achieving SDG 11 “sustainable cities and communities.”
Find out more about the WE Project
We contribute to the creation of physical and digital learning spaces, promoting a new concept of sustainable schooling. In this field we’re also involved through our charitable organization, Enel Cuore, which supports numerous projects dedicated to the culture of education, including:
Completed projects
This educational project was for primary and secondary school students and aimed to raise their awareness of sustainability and biodiversity issues through observing and learning about bees. Following an initial theoretical part in the classroom, the children and teenagers had the opportunity to take a close-up look, in complete safety, at the industriousness of these fascinating pollinating insects thanks to innovative transparent B-BOX hives, provided by the startup Beeing, that were installed at the CFA Education and Training Center in L’Aquila. This initiative combined quality learning with respect for the local area, giving young people a chance to be protagonists in protecting the ecosystem.
Our Group is striving to protect and value biodiversity in all of the areas we work in. Preserving ecosystems is one of the major global challenges of our time and the future: it is therefore essential to raise awareness among the younger generations. The Biodiversity4Young environmental education project, launched with Legambiente, worked actively on this front. The initiative involved 8 secondary schools in Sicily, Calabria, Tuscany, Lombardy, Marche, Abruzzo and Sardinia.
The project aimed to engage around 250 students in issues of biodiversity and protecting the environment through the creation of Pathways for Transversal Skills and Orientation (PCTO) developed by Legambiente. These included a theoretical part involving training and talks by experts from our Group, a citizen science field experience, a workshop about sustainability and a final phase for discussion and sharing ideas, amounting to a total of 22 hours for each participant. The initiative offered an opportunity for the young people to engage with professionals and real-life contexts in the green economy, discover our initiatives to protect biodiversity, and gain useful ideas and experience in order to become active protagonists in their local areas.
Bringing young people closer to STEM subjects (acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) to acquire the skills that will make them protagonists of the future is crucial for achieving SDG 4.
The Brindisi Brilla project, sponsored by the Municipality of Brindisi and implemented with our contribution, consisted of a STEM camp that involved 40 first and second grade students from 6 to 10 September 2021, with the aim of recovering and getting girls and boys in fragility or hardship situation close to the school, giving them the opportunity to compete with the technical-scientific disciplines in a non-scholastic or traditional way, but of play and discovery.
The initiative was carried out in collaboration with “Il Cielo Itinerante”, association founded in 2021 by Ersilia Vaudo Scarpetta and Alessia Mosca. The association shared with us a vision of the scientific culture as essential element for creating an inclusive and sustainable society, which offers equal opportunities for all regardless of socio-economic level of origin.
Find out more about the project Brindisi Brilla
A complex and highly topical issue explained in simple and engaging language, insights through links, a game, a glossary of terms from the world of energy, and a selection of films, books and playlists. It is the interactive workbook "The Energy Transition," edited by SmemoLab as part of the EduBox series and produced with the support of our Group. Designed to attract the attention of Generation Z and to entice children, along with teachers and their families, to be protagonists on the path to sustainable innovation, the notebook is aimed at high school students, but because of its features it is suitable for anyone interested in learning more about the topic. Available online at the DentroTutti website, the workbook consists of a general overview and sections devoted to renewable energy, smart grids, innovative and sustainable services, and the different themes of the transition: from energy efficiency to electrification of consumption, from digitalization to the circular economy, not forgetting to turn a glance at the new "green" professions.
The “SOStenibile - la crisi è l’occasione” (“SOS Sustainable – a crisis can be an opportunity”) project, which was developed by the Juppiter association in collaboration with the municipality of Montalto di Castro (near Viterbo). It takes its inspiration from the Assisi Manifesto, which we joined in January 2020, for a human-sized economy to combat the climate crisis, and from the words of Pope Francis, who reminded us in his encyclical Laudato sì that “the environment is our common home: we must look after it and not destroy it.” The events will be organized in close collaboration with the Fondazione Symbola and are designed to help children and young people learn to love and respect their local areas. These events also aim to raise awareness among the younger generations about good practices to ensure they continue on the road to sustainability in its various forms.
The project that we are supporting includes activities in Montalto and the surrounding area. This is in addition to involving a network of schools that will produce content that merges into a single interactive platform to communicate and share sustainability tips among the pupils.
One of the more original initiatives is the creation of the “Casa di Vetro” (the Glass House), a view of the world 80 years from now with contemporary images alongside projections of what will happen to the Earth if we fail to change our lifestyle with respect to the environment. The videos will be projected onto a 10-meter-high screen mounted on top of a truck that will travel around the municipalities of Montalto, Tarquinia, Tuscania, Capalbio and Canino, engaging students from schools in the area and the local population.
Renewable energy sources are not just the main element of the energy transition, they are also a driver for the growth of the national economy through the creation of new skills and new jobs required to support the green revolution. A process that also includes reskilling people who are currently employed in coal-fired power plants that are due to close in Italy by 2025. Precisely in order to meet the new needs of these professional categories, we have begun a project to train certified professionals who are immediately available in the area and who will then be placed on construction sites to build solar photovoltaic systems. An initiative, in line with our Group’s commitment, to accompany local communities and our partner companies during this new phase of the energy transition, creating respectable job opportunities without leaving anyone behind.