Q&A: Dijana Vlaisavljevic, Environmental Social Governance (ESG) Manager, Sonnedix

• The ‘traditional’ energy industry and engineering world are both heavily male-dominated sectors. Inevitably, this leads to gendered perspectives on solutions. How does Sonnedix seek to challenge and overcome the status quo?

Through making our team more diverse and achieving gender balance at all levels, from providing equal employment opportunities to addressing gender pay gap. In our drive to be a more diverse and inclusive company, 2020 saw the development of our EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) policy and manifesto documents that set out our commitment to diversity and made clear the roadmap ahead concerning our culture, our team and our partners. We promote EDI  in the workplace through the development of an EDI framework encompassing our policies, training provision, communications, employee engagement, inclusive management practice and monitoring.

Amongst other EDI goals, we have set ourselves a goal of 40% of hires in 2020 to be women. The goal was very challenging given that women are a minority of the talent pool in nearly all functional areas and this representation also varies by geography – sometimes with women representing under 20% of the talent pool. As such, this has involved a complete review of all aspects of the recruitment process from defining roles to onboarding. The goal of 40% women hires was exceeded in 2020 with 47% of new joiners being women. So far, in 2021, more than 50% of our new hires are women. These efforts have been recognized externally, as we received the at Solar Power Europe’s Summit, in March 2021.

An example of fostering EDI on our project is the Sonnedix Atacama Solar project in Chile where we appointed a designated “Women’s Champion” and developed a project-specific Gender Action Plan to encourage female participation. This resulted in 17% of the total workforce employed during peak construction being women and sourcing goods and services from a number of women-owned local businesses throughout the construction.

• Sonnedix by its nature accomplishes many environmental goals within the “ESG” spectrum, but clearly, the social element drives many of the company’s decisions. From a management perspective, how does Sonnedix merge these social actions with their commitments to shareholders to maximize profit incentives?

Our focus is not just on managing ESG risk and ensuring regulatory compliance. Our management recognises that ESG contributes to creating a sustainable competitive advantage through many avenues such as increased access to financing and green and sustainable lending; better employment satisfaction, motivation and engagement; improved reputation, cost reduction through greater resource efficiency, enhanced investment returns, amongst others, which all lead to an improved competitiveness and value for our shareholders.

• Travel restrictions as a result of Covid have inhibited access to investors, financiers and potential project partners from accessing viable projects. At a time where it is crucial to fill the renewables-funding gap, how has Sonnedix overcome this barrier and continued to provide access to financiers/investors?

As with many other aspects of our life, COVID has pushed our company in ways we could never have imagined and has emphasized the importance of ESG in building a resilient business. An example of using restrictions imposed by COVID and turning them into an opportunity is our strategy to meet our ambitious educational target. With the rapid shift towards digitalisation in education and following the difficulties of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, we pivoted from the standard presentation format towards immersive digital technology to make solar available to everyone, anytime, anywhere. This has been achieved through the development of , a virtual learning experience that takes the visitor on a journey through the Sonnedix Atacama Solar plant in Chile, one of the largest solar photovoltaic plants in the country.

Participants in this quest interact with different parts of the solar plant, learning about how energy from the sun is harnessed and transformed into clean electricity to power the nearby communities. Participants collect tokens along the way to complete the quest and power an imaginary town with 100% renewable energy. The experience gives visitors of all ages a great insight into how renewable energy works and the solutions it offers to climate change; inspiring the problem solvers of tomorrow to build a bright future for all.

SolQuest has already been launched/exhibited in several science museums across the UK, as well as a network lunch during COP26, and we are looking to launch it in our other countries of operation early next year.

• Covid has revealed how crucial developing the ‘social’ aspect within businesses, as they can have wide-reaching impacts. In this regard, Sonnedix appears to have been spending profits to help others. Would you tell us more about your “Give It Up for Covid-19 Relief” project and what it has achieved?

To help those most vulnerable within our communities during the first months of the pandemic, we designed a donation campaign mirroring our previously successful ‘Give it Up for Puerto Rico’ campaign for Hurricane Maria relief.

The donation contributed by employees was matched by Sonnedix to bring a total of EUR 130,000 to fund relief projects in all countries of operation. The employee-raised funds were used for local emergency relief (supporting the local hospitals/Red Cross organisations or partnering with food banks and services delivering food to the elderly and to families in low-income areas), the company matching element was used to partner with schools in impoverished areas near our offices to provide laptops and remote learning support to students. The campaign is a great example of putting our value ‘Do the Right Thing’ into practice and impacted over 6,000 learners and provided over 300,000 meals to those most at need, among other benefits.