How is Enel Embedding Sustainability Within its Procurement?

From its early beginnings in Italy, Enel has grown into a major clean energy provider, empowering people around the world to reduce their environmental impact.

It is shaping a better world through its sustainable solutions, from its suppliers and partnerships to its innovative creations. 

With a procurement strategy focused on circularity and innovation, Enel is embedding sustainability throughout its operations.

Procurement strategies

Enel Group is a multinational company changing the energy sector, as the largest private player in clean energy production.

It distributes electricity through a network of 69 million end users, providing clean energy to approximately 54 million homes and businesses.

Using clean, innovative and responsible energy solutions, Enel reduces its own and others' environmental impact. 

Through its integrated value chain, it produces and distributes clean energy and helps customers make informed decisions regarding their energy transition.

Enel's global procurement strategy focuses on environmental, social and economic sustainability, as it meets the company's ambition of building a better future.

The company is focused on building sustainable supply chains, a circular economy and digital innovation in order to build value with its suppliers.

Creating circularity

Through building a circular economy, Enel is generating competitiveness by combining innovation and sustainability with its suppliers.

For procurement leaders, this means they're actively seeking goods or services which can be reused or recycled in a way which limited the waste over their lifecycle.

Part of the circularity process is Enel's “Circular Economy Initiative for Suppliers Engagement” project, which promotes supplier engagement and sustainability. 

Enrico Zampone, Head of Global Procurement at Enel, says: “Caring for our suppliers and developing innovative tools to support them in navigating the complexities of ever-evolving markets are now essential elements of a modern and forward-looking business model, both for Enel and for the entire national system."

The supplier engagement project encourages suppliers to stay in constant communication with Enel and develop the best strategies for sustainability. For example, suppliers will track their CO2 emissions in order to increase transparency and trust.

From there, Enel can use its global reach and wealth of resources to help with tracking and improvement solutions, ensuring suppliers have access to the technology and data platforms to do so.

In doing this, Enel can measure and mitigate its own emissions, as well as encourage its suppliers to do the same.

Through starting with these transparent relationships with its suppliers and its circular economy solutions, Enel's procurement teams are ensuring sustainability is embedded throughout. 

Innovation at its core

Through the combination of technology and human expertise, Enel is innovating the energy transition. 

Through collaboration with startups, SMEs, academics, investors, large companies and internal and external experts, Enel is ensuring every potential path is explored. 

By blending open innovation and sustainability - innovability - the best talent, ideas and technologies are brought into scale in order to spark innovation and development. 

In September, Enel inaugurated a desedimentation project in the Italian Region of Piedmont. The project was integrated with the Venaus floating photvaltaci system, in order to blend floating solar panels with water preservation. 

On the creation, Head of Innovation at Enel, Nicola Rossi said: "Thanks to plant hybridisation, we have already achieved greater energy availability with better use of water resources, in order to protect the territory and local communities.

"With the innovative desedimentation plant presented today, Venaus becomes even more efficient and sustainable."

Through embedding circularity, sustainability and innovation into its procurement processes, Enel is ensuring it stays a leader in clean energy.

Its environmental, social and governance (ESG) plans are embedded throughout its procurement strategies, meaning its teams are making informed decisions about which suppliers to partner with or which projects to begin.

As its procurement team is constantly considering Enel's environmental impact, the company ensures it never loses sight of its aim of 'building the future'.