INERCO presents its experience in advising and supporting international renewable energy projects in a webinar organised by Extenda and ATA Insights

INERCO has participated as a guest expert in the webinar ‘Environmental and social standards, key to financing your renewable project’, organized by the Andalusian Agency for Foreign Promotion (EXTENDA) and ATAInsights. Esther Valdivia, Director of INERCO’s Environment Division, and Luis Toscano, Head of the Natural Environment and Town Planning Area, were responsible for looking in depth at essential aspects when setting up renewable energy projects, based on INERCO’s own experience and know-how in initiatives of this type in both Europe and Latin America.

As Esther Valdivia commented, when facing a project of this type, not only purely financial aspects must be taken into account, but also environmental and social standards, “which are crucial for the sustainability of these initiatives and social approval”.

Along these lines, the work carried out by INERCO over the last thirty years in Europe and Latin America “has allowed us to identify a series of elements with which we have shaped our own methodology of work in this field, which is particularly sensitive for the implementation of projects”.

Thus, says Esther Valdivia, “it is the multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank, that provide the rules to which most financial institutions adhere, not only in the permitting phase but also in periodic audits or when corporate changes occur, sometimes retroactively”.

INERCO representatives also broke down the environmental and social framework of the World Bank, IFC and Equator Principles, to identify the keys to obtaining project financing, as well as analyzing the environmental and social regulations specific to each country – with examples from Spain, Mexico, Chile and Peru – to understand their impact and learn how to manage the necessary permits.