Today, Lekela has published its 2020 annual sustainability report, celebrating five years of generating clean energy through wind projects in South Africa, Senegal, and Egypt.
The report details our approach to sustainability and the important links between the successful delivery of clean and reliable energy in Africa and high environmental, social and governance standards.
As a signatory to the UN Global Compact, the report provides details of Lekela’s long-term commitment to and investment programmes in the African communities where it operates. It also shows the ways in which our projects seek to improve local education, develop local enterprise and protect the local environment.
In addition, the report looks at the impact of Covid-19 and our response not just in terms of construction and logistics, but also how we adapted our community initiatives and renewed our focus on people.
With last year seeing our business bring more power online whilst responding to the pandemic, highlights of the 2020 report include:
- Reaching an operational portfolio of 786 MW of clean energy produced by six windfarms across Africa, allowing us to grow our supply of clean energy in Africa. We generated 1,649 GWh of zero-carbon electricity, helping Africa work towards its climate goals.
- Launching two wind farms in South Africa, Kangnas and Perdekraal East. Together, they’re saving 960,000 tonnes of CO2 each year, powering 260,000 South African homes.
- Distributing over 4,000 household hygiene packs in Ras Ghareb, Egypt, in response to the pandemic. In South Africa we helped catalyse the manufacture of over 42,000 masks through 19 entrepreneurs and businesses.
- Supporting 196 women and girls through Lekela’s projects, either in the form of scholarships, bursaries, internships or through their businesses.
- Appointing expert ornithologists to study bird movements and local weather patterns, as part of our commitment to operating our West Bakr Wind Fam in Egypt with no net loss to biodiversity.
- Increasing the percentage of workers from the local community for Taiba N’Diaye our Wind Farm to 50% – up from 35% in 2019.
Jennifer Boca, Head of ESG, Lekela said: “When the pandemic hit, we saw our duty of care extending not just to our workers but also to the people living near our projects. Whilst it has been a difficult year, it’s been positive to see how we’ve adapted our community approach to support people through Covid-19, which has reinforced our belief that our ambitions around delivering clean energy are inseparable from our community work.
“Despite the pandemic, our focus on community initiatives that support education, enterprise and the environment continued throughout 2020, supporting dozens of business, hundreds of jobs, and thousands of students.”
Chris Antonopoulos, Chief Executive Officer, Lekela, added: “Almost five years on since our first project went into operations, it’s amazing to see how Lekela has grown its portfolio and helped meet the demands of a continent in need of clean, reliable energy.
“Sustainability has been central to this approach, and I’m proud to see that we’ve continued to deliver against this, even in the face of a global pandemic. These challenges mean being able to bring projects into operation, continue construction and support local communities is even more important. The fact that this has been maintained to the highest standards is a huge credit to our teams, contractors and partners.
“The pandemic has only underlined the role renewables can play in Africa’s path to sustainable development. It is more important than ever that we call for countries, investors and developers to put renewables at the centre of a green recovery.”
The full 2020 sustainability report can be viewed here:
[Embedded Sustainability Report included here]