Our community
We are committed to protecting and improving the lives of communities where we conduct our business, including indigenous and vulnerable populations that are affected by our operations.
As we develop and operate projects, we engage with our host communities and local government units throughout the lifecycle of our power plants. By establishing grievance mechanism procedures during the early development phase, we ensure that we consult with, obtain consent from and keep our communities updated on the project status based on these criteria: stakeholder engagement, grievance redress mechanism and social programs.
Before the development phase, we conduct rapid assessments to determine if involuntary resettlement or economic displacement will occur because of the project. In the case of physical displacement, we provide compensation, through either property resettlement or cash, and full replacement cost for land and other assets lost.
One of our key material topics is human and labor rights, particularly in areas of health and safety, involuntary resettlement and indigenous peoples. Our ESG policy emphasizes protecting and improving communities, including indigenous and vulnerable populations, that are affected by our operations.
Part of our environment and social assessment through ESMS is determining occupational health and safety risks and mitigation plans to ensure that we abide by national regulations and international labor standards.
During the development stage, we create meaningful environmental and social programs tailored to the needs of our communities. For our areas of operations near ancestral domains or indigenous land, we ensure that we involve indigenous peoples (IPs) as part of our social assessment and stakeholder engagement process throughout the lifecycle of our projects. We also develop livelihood programs based on existing industries and skills of communities we work with and create corresponding eligibility and entitlement criteria to ensure impactful implementation.
We recognize diversity and inclusivity as effective means to uphold human rights. In areas where we operate, our projects continuously work with a network of organizations to ensure that we create safe spaces and opportunities for all.
Our Social Framework for
our community programs
Beyond maintaining good relationships with our host communities, we develop sustainability programs tailored to facilitate the area’s socio-economic progress. By collaborating with local agencies, state agencies, research organizations, and conservation groups, we establish programs anchored on three sustainability pillars: biodiversity, social programs and resource efficiency. These are aligned with ACEN’s material issues to ensure that all our efforts are sustainable and contribute to the overall well-being of the communities where we operate.
To enhance the impact of our sustainability efforts, we’ve formed a strategic partnership with RiShift, a consultancy firm known for helping organizations embed sustainability into their core business strategies. This collaboration aims to assess how effectively our initiatives meet the social and environmental needs of the communities we serve by using the Social Progress Index (SPI) as a tool. We have started to take a comprehensive look at well-being that goes beyond traditional economic measures, focusing instead on how well societies are doing in providing for their citizens’ basic human needs, improving the quality of life and enabling individuals to achieve their potential*.
This approach shifts our focus from merely tracking our activities to evaluating the real-world outcomes of our sustainability efforts, ensuring that we’re making a meaningful difference in people’s lives and the health of our planet. Typically used at a per-country level, the SPI outlines three dimensions and 12 indicators to measure social progress and what matters to the communities most. The SPI also aligns with global development indicators such as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), World Bank Metrics and International Finance Corporation Performance Standards.
*Source: Harvard Business School Institute for Strategy & Competitiveness, Social Progress Index
Sustainability program pillars
Biodiversity
Resource efficiency
Social programs
ACEN sustainability pillars’
alignment to Social Progress Index (SPI) and UN SDGs
The Social Progress Index (SPI) is a critical tool in guiding our decision-making and optimizing resource distribution, ensuring that our strategies and actions are finely tuned to the needs of the communities we support. Within our sustainability initiatives, we adapt the SPI framework to ACEN’s unique operational context, ensuring that our efforts are measured against both global standards and local realities.
Here’s how we incorporate the SPI into our work:
Mapping and baseline establishment: We begin by mapping our existing sustainability initiatives against the SPI’s dimensions and indicators. This exercise helps us understand how our efforts correlate with the broader goals of social progress and establishes a baseline from which we can measure future impact.
Preparation for impact assessment: We recognize the importance of meaningful impact measurement and lay the groundwork for comprehensive evaluations. By aligning our programs with the SPI framework, we are setting clear benchmarks that will enable us to assess the real-world effects of our initiatives on community well-being and environmental sustainability in the future.
Dynamic evaluation and adaptation: Our initial assessment of initiatives is the starting point. We employ a dynamic and iterative evaluation process that allows us to continuously improve the effectiveness and communication of our programs.
ACEN’s social impact wheel
Our sustainability pillars are aligned with both the Social Progress Index (SPI) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), demonstrating our commitment to global priorities. By utilizing these frameworks as metrics, we ensure alignment with international standards and leverage the complementary nature of the SPI and the SDGs to guide and measure the positive impact of our initiatives on both the environment and society*.
*Source: Deloitte (2017) The Social Progress Index
Climate change
resilience efforts
Through our Environment and Social Management System (ESMS), we were able identify environmental and social risks for our projects and develop appropriate mitigation plans to address each. In terms of climate change resilience, we have determined which among our operational plants have conducted climate risk assessment on physical risks such as tropical cyclone, flooding, water stress, drought, wildfire, and extreme temperature and implored climate risk adaptation and mitigation measures as part of our environmental assessment studies during the development phase. These studies help determine engineering solutions for the identified major risks to guide optimal construction design, including operational and management plans.
For instance, in our Vietnam wind farms, we have implemented climate-resilient infrastructure design to mitigate impact of extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones and flooding.
In our Australia solar farms, New England Solar and Stubbo Solar, we have installed security fencing around project sites to protect assets from potential fire caused by wildfire. Fire management and emergency plans outline mitigation measures such as monitoring of fuel load, identification of emergency access points and ensuring that available water supply for fire suppression is present within protection zones.
Across our solar farms in the Philippines and India, and in one of our wind farms in Vietnam, rapid emergency repair teams were developed to address immediate issues that pose a threat to the facility caused by climate hazards. In addition to this, emergency procedures and safety plan incorporate climate adaptation strategies to help plants prepare, respond and recover from natural hazards such as earthquakes, extreme weather conditions, flooding and storm surges.
