Achieving a positive impact on biodiversity by 2030 represents a major long-term challenge, one which entails carrying out and fulfilling a series of intermediate goals. One of these intermediate goals focuses on identifying and evaluating the impacts and dependencies of the electricity transmission grid infrastructure on natural capital.

Actions:

During the first stage of this challenge, work is being done on the design of a roadmap that will enable the identification of the positive and negative impacts of its business model on the various ecosystems, the species present in these and the cultural use made of said ecosystems.

In a second stage, work will be carried out to achieve four specific milestones to assess the positive or negative impact of Red Eléctrica on ecosystem services in the area of influence of its facilities. The process developed for each of these milestones will be integrated into a methodology for identifying, assessing and evaluating impacts on natural capital and ecosystem services and that will be applied to current and future electricity transmission grid projects.

Benefits:

The implementation of the methodology developed for the assessment and valuation of natural capital and ecosystem services will allow a significant improvement of the Company's environmental impact assessments, reducing the loss of biodiversity, due to the impacts produced as a result of the business model, and will contribute to the socio-economic development of society, therefore improving their well-being and quality of life.

Red Eléctrica will position itself as one of the pioneering electric utility companies in assessing and quantifying its positive impact on natural capital. At the end of this process, the Company will be able to develop structured integrated decision-making processes that minimise the impacts of its business model at specific points such as:

• Evaluation of scenarios or alternatives in the implementation and development of future energy processes or projects.
• Generation of baseline studies based on ecosystem services.
• Optimisation of the environmental mitigation, avoidance and offsetting measures and processes.
• Inclusion of the social uses and cultural services of the territory in the environmental impact assessments.
• Improvements in the quantification and valuation processes regarding the environmental impacts of the business model on the environmental assets they directly affect and their contributions to society.

Period:

The project is currently underway. It began in the first half of 2019 and plans to deliver the results in October 2019.

In collaboration with:

Red Eléctrica is the main partner and leader of this project in collaboration with Ecoacsa and Typsa. Both these entities combine extensive experience in the assessment and valuation of natural capital and in conducting ecosystem services studies both nationally and internationally.