ENGIE, the largest private-sector electric energy company in Brazil, active in electric energy generation, trading and transmission, gas transportation, and energy solutions, celebrates Monday (March 22) the World Water Day by endorsing the Ministry of Regional Development’s “Brazilian Waters” program. One of the program’s aims is to revitalize watersheds like those of the São Francisco, Parnaíba and Tocantins-Araguaia rivers.
ENGIE Communication and Sustainability officer Gil Maranhão Neto will attend, at 11 am Monday, the “Brazilian Waters” event, during which the support of ENGIE and other companies to the program will be announced.
The Headwaters Recovery project of the Brejo da Brásida Community in Sento Sé (BA), a community neighboring ENGIE’s Umburanas wind complex, is among the 26 projects selected by the “Brazilian Waters” program and will be showcased at the event.
ENGIE has since 2017 invested in this partnership with the Brejo da Brasida Residents’ Association (“Associação de Moradores do Brejo da Brasida” – AMBB), contributing to the protection of several wellsprings there and in other communities within the watershed by means of environmental education programs, research and cataloguing of plants and herbs of the Caatinga biome, planting of native plant species, collection of seeds and production of saplings in a proprietary nursery, and other initiatives.
WATER A RESOURCE THAT MUST BE PROTECTED – For ENGIE, the date has special meaning: in the last year alone, the company invested over R$ 30 million in socio-environmental actions to maintain the environmental licenses of its operating power plants. The funds have direct impacts in terms of assuring the protection and conservation of natural resources in the regions where the company operates, in addition to contributing to attainment of the SDGs – Sustainable Development Goals. Another front of action for ENGIE is to achieve a 35% reduction of its water consumption for industrial activities by 2030.
Furthermore, all of the company’s socio-environmental programs and actions meet more than one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations Organization (UNO) in 2015 as a world agenda for the construction and implementation of public policies to guide humankind until 2030. Some of the projects aligned with the agenda include the limnology and water quality program, which monitors groundwater, monitors and controls macrophytes, preserves and recovers the fish fauna, monitors porpoises, plants saplings, and more. This meets objectives #6 (Clean water and sanitation), #7 (Affordable and clean energy), #13 (Climate action), #14 (Life below water) and #15 (Life on land).
The Headwaters Conservation Program, for example, is one of ENGIE’s initiatives meeting this profile. It aligns with agenda goal #6, which aims to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. The project, which began in 2010 in the municipality of Chopinzinho (PR), has already recovered more than 2 thousand wellsprings in nine Brazilian states (PR, SC, RS, MT, MA, GO, TO, BA and MG), and helps ensure quality water for the sustainable development of the regions’ current and future generations.
To conserve Brazilian biodiversity, ENGIE contributes to the maintenance of endemic fish species of the Iguazu and Uruguay rivers, promoting involvement of the local population in biodiversity conservation.
With 12 hydroelectric power plants in operation nationwide and more than 9,400 km of reservoir perimeter, the company’s portfolio of programs includes an environmental and social heritage inspection program that focuses on identifying and addressing irregular usage of the reservoirs’ surrounding areas.
WATER SCARCITY – The Company’s presence, however, is not limited to areas where the resource is abundant. IN municipalities where water is scarce, such as the region of the Campo Largo/Umburanas Wind Complex, ENGIE has implemented communal vegetable garden projects including well drilling and water recycling, promoting the economic and social development of more than 50 households.
The Company also reaches out to communities surrounding its plants by means of Visitation and Environmental Education programs intended for various publics that interact with the Company and its projects. The initiative includes socio-environmental actions, school lectures, and visits to facilities. In the last three years alone, ENGIE’s Visitation and Environmental Education Programs has had approximately 270 thousand participants.
JIRAU ENERGIA – With 12 years’ real-time water quality monitoring, the Jirau hydroelectric plant, in the State of Rondônia, whose shareholders are ENGIE, with a 40% stake, Eletrobrás Eletrosul, with 20%, Eletrobrás Chesf, with 20%, and Mizha Participações S.A., with 20%, has built a robust data bank that enables stating that none of the monitored parameters have changed as a result of the reservoir buildup. A significant feature of the plant’s Fish Transposition System (STP) is its selectiveness. The program aims to prevent the piramutaba species from swimming upstream, thereby reducing the risk of ecological imbalance in the upper portions of the watershed. Also noteworthy is the Telemetry Program, which tags fish with chips for monitoring purposes, according to six target species as defined by environmental authority IBAMA.
Jirau also developed several initiatives on behalf of local communities. A clean water distribution network implemented in partnership with water utility Companhia de Água e Esgotos de Rondônia (CAERD) and the community benefitted more than 300 householders in the lower Madeira district. The Native Communities Support Program, by its turn, benefits approximately 3 thousand Native Brazilians with the distribution of 29 chlorinators for water treatment and the implementation of 20 water wells in the 20 schools built by Jirau Energia. The hydroelectric plant’s Environmental Education Program has reached more than 5 thousand studies with the sanitary education subject, in addition to 14 sites in the Jirau HPP’s catchment areas.