Business model

ACCIONA lives sustainability

It’s not a buzzword. It’s a way of life. It’s the way we do business.

By making sustainability the strategic driving force behind our business decisions, we increased our revenue 172 percent in 2009. When we say that we create shareholder value through social responsibility, we mean it, and we apply this to the core of our business, whether it’s through renewable energy development—such as wind turbine manufacturing or wind farm development—or infrastructure and water treatment. In fact, we apply our core values to everything we do.
 

Let us say it again: we’re different

Develop. Build. Operate. Partner. Our business model is unique in our industry. It’s not always as simple as this, but the reason we’re different is that our core businesses are vertically integrated within their sectors. Because we’re typically the owners of our projects, rather than building for others, we develop our projects, select our partners and build with greater attention to detail and long-term viability. We also use better materials, which may have higher short-term costs but pay off in the long run with reduced maintenance costs. In other words, we don’t cut corners.

Develop: Developing projects often takes years. It requires determining whether a project is viable: is the wind or sunshine in a given location sufficient to develop a viable renewable energy plant? It requires working with local governments and planning commissions: can we develop a public private partnership (P3) to get a toll road built? It requires working with local and regional utilities that provide water or energy to a municipality or region: can the water that we treat and desalinize or the energy that we create be fed into the broader system? If so, how?

ACCIONA spends years asking these critical questions, doing environmental impact assessments, working with communities, seeking permits and ensuring that our projects are planned to perfection before we break ground. This is sustainable development.

Build: Our legacy of over 100 years is building, so when we develop a project, we typically build it as well. It may be a hospital in British Columbia, a wind turbine in Iowa, a water treatment plant in Florida or a concentrating solar power plant in Nevada. Building is our specialty. Around the world we have built some of the largest man-made structures, and we’re bringing this expertise to North America

Operate: Once developed, once built, someone must operate and maintain a project. Someone must ensure that safety and quality are guaranteed for the life of the project. Someone must ensure that the sustainable principals that went into the development and building of that project are maintained through its useful life. ACCIONA is that someone. 

ACCIONA owns, operates and maintains almost all of its North American projects. The water desalination plant in Tampa, Tatanka Wind Farm and Nevada Solar One (to name a few) are developed, built and now operated by ACCIONA.

Partner: Partnerships have been critical to our success. In fact, we couldn’t develop, build and operate without our partners. For project financing, we may take on equity partners. For public project realization, we may take on public partners. For construction, we work with contracting and sub-contracting partners across projects. Although our partners come in many forms, what is consistent among them is their commitment to sustainability. They must share our passion for sustainable development and our commitment to social responsibility.
 

The customer is always right

Our customer, in the end, is the public. Whether it’s a glass of cool drinking water in Tampa, the electricity to power a home in Toronto or the road that a family travels on in Quebec, the end user is always in sight. In fact, the quality we adhere to and the sustainable principals we abide by are, ultimately, dedicated to them.