Betting On Environmental Sustainability and Balance

• Progress from ISO 14001 certification and integral management system
  ISO 14001 certification represents the company’s concern with adjusting to international standards that facilitate the accomplishment of its environmental policy and facilitate an advancement in Principles 7, 8, and 9 of the Global Compact. To reach this goal, since 2008 the company has been following a path that involves environmental authorities, a board of directors, collaborators, and suppliers – all of whom have been exceptionally relevant in guaranteeing project success and assuring the identification, evaluation, prevention, mitigation, control of, and compensation for environmental impacts.
  
  
• Most relevant impacts identification – the first step to mitigation
  Essential elements of the energy transport business are the operation and system maintenance activities, which have a high impact within the wide operation zones in which the company works. To help identify the environmental issues and the most significant impacts, the company developed a methodology based on the ISO 14001 standard. The methodology includes: i) environmental planning; ii) annual objectives, goals, and improvement programs identification; iii) efficient management measures; iv) permanent operations control; v) deviations identification; and vi) indicator measures.
  
  Through this recording information-mechanism, the company is conscious of consumption and/or use of natural resources and, based on this data, develops – along with its employees – awareness activities to improve management.
  
  
• Resource consumption and employee awareness
  The levels of resource consumption in the company for paper, water, electricity, as well as waste integral management was noted. To address the issue, the campaign El Vaso del Dia (glass of the day) was set up, which was intended to transform 120,000 plastic units into approximately 30,000 eco-friendly units (paper pulp). Twenty days from the start, the recorded consumption was reduced by nearly 30 percent. In addition, composting management represents at the moment 50 kilograms of organic material per day, which comes from the restaurant, the coffee machines, and the gardens.
  
  
• Progress of dangerous residual management
  Environmental risks in the energy transmission process come from the use and manipulation of chemical products – with oil, in all its forms, being the main one. As a leak-prevention method, ISA built or adapted collecting pools to four zigzag transformers. The company treats the contaminated oil, which is equivalent to 0.3 percent of the total amount of oil, with PCB. During the period, it generated 9.7 tons of contaminated oil. It was then handed over to LITO, the company in charge of its final disposal at its EKOKEN incineration plant in Finland.
  
  
• To control greenhouse gas effects
  Greenhouse gas management is an enormous concern to the company. Since 2008, ISA has been working with an SF6 management program which, in 2009, enabled ISA to reduce gas purchases as a result of the improvement in maintenance processes and helped solve outflows problem, reducing the amount of SF6 lost to 0.47 percent.
  
  
• Support to regional institutions
  Supporting the work of 10 autonomous regional corporations and with direct and committed participation with the impacted communities, ISA has intervened and had a positive effect on nearly 1.1 million hectares of strategic regional ecosystems.
  
  
• Supplier linking
  One of most relevant issues is supplier linking. The commitment is based on three fundamental pillars: i) procedure adoption and modification; ii) clean technologies adoption; iii) implementation of dispositions based on occupational health and environmental norms.
  
  
• Closing: articulated work
  We are proud of the certification process in addition to having raised environmental management standards. We have improved the feedback processes and, as a consequence, strengthened the company, its collaborators, and suppliers. We have strengthened mutual relationships, generated room for sustainable development, in addition to increasing performance optimization and our overall business position.
  
  

This project description was originally presented in the Global Compact International Yearbook 2010.