"By prioritising a truly inclusive culture, we can actually value diverse perspectives, foster an attractive company, and unleash its full potential for creativity and innovation."
Paula Carneiro, Head of People & Organisational Development Global Unit
"To achieve our ambitious goals, we must attract, develop and retain different profiles. We work every day to ensure equitable and fair opportunities for everyone and are committed to the inclusion and sense of belonging of each person who has contact with EDP."
João Verdelho, Head of Talent Attraction & Management
We're focusing on how EDP Renewables incorporates the principles of DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) into the organisation's values and practices by giving you a sneak peek into one of their impressive best practices. In achieving their business objectives, they strive to attract, develop, and retain different profiles, going beyond legislation and assuming diversity as an enabling and differentiating factor of innovation, team performance, and engagement.
As part of their corporate strategy, the DEIB Roadmap to an Inclusive Workplace currently prioritises four dimensions of diversity – namely gender equality, inclusion of people with disabilities, multigenerational teams and cultures/nationalities – by defining concrete challenges and the required actions to address these priorities. EDP also established an Inclusion Office to consolidate all the initiatives and focus on promoting an inclusive mindset and workplace that leverages business, people, and community.
Success is based on reaching targets within a specified timeframe for each dimension, holding themselves accountable by sharing them internally and publicly.
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Why the practice was needed
As a company in the energy industry, EDP recognises that it has traditionally been represented by men in most functions. This is rooted in the organisation's core business of asset operation and maintenance and energy management functions, which men historically performed.
The energy sector is now reinventing itself - from conventional fossil fuel-based energy production technologies to cutting-edge renewable technology. This work requires a fresh and open-minded approach from professionals from different professional backgrounds, from universities and technical schools, and various STEM fields. Promoting a diverse, equitable and inclusive company starts at the front door by attracting a diverse talent pool.
EDP aims to lead the energy transition with a more inclusive workplace. To achieve this, they launched their journey on D&I over a decade ago, seeking to create an organic multidisciplinary structure supported by an actionable and continuous living roadmap that can reinvent itself along the way. They made a business case focusing on several dimensions (gender equality, inclusion of people with disabilities, generations, and different cultures) to show that investment in each area would create business value.
Research shows that:
- Organisational innovation is more significant the more diverse and inclusive a workplace is, such as gender representation in management roles.
- Multigenerational teams make better decisions than teams of people approximately the same age.
- The top companies that excelled in including people with disabilities had 30% higher economic profit margins.
Hiring 1.5% of the management team from a country different than the one the company is based in leads to improved innovation revenue.
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How the practice was implemented
Solution
As part of EDP's corporate strategy, their DEIB Roadmap to an Inclusive Workplace is based on the following key concepts:
- Diversity: welcoming representation of traits and characteristics that make each person unique. There are a few dimensions of diversity, and EDP measures it through disaggregated data by dimension or characteristic.
- Gender Equality: focuses on the need to continue increasing women's participation in EDP through employer branding, recruitment, and retention efforts.
- People with Disabilities Inclusion: involves taking action to guarantee equal access to opportunities through an inclusive recruitment process that ensures an increase in the number of professionals with disabilities at EDP.
- Generations: EDP ensures a readiness to welcome new generations while fostering a work environment that allows different generations to relate to one another, develop themselves, and work together more agilely.
- Nationalities & Cultures: focuses on fostering a culturally diverse company that welcomes, respects, and values each person's background and life experiences.
- Other dimensions and intersectionality: the recognition that more dimensions of diversity impact the employee experience and that these also intersect, requiring a more integrated approach to action.
- Equity: ensuring that all individuals have equal access to opportunities and are treated fairly by the definition of standard operational procedures on internal processes such as recruitment, compensation or development, and the level of physical and digital accessibility.
- Inclusion & belonging: the psychological and social function of an individual's highly perceived sense of uniqueness and belonging guaranteed through the total compensation and benefits package or the employee perception and experience throughout their professional journey.
EDP's D&I journey began in 2013 with an ambitious multi-level action plan that set the scene for a new strategy and approach, which has since evolved into a living roadmap that has earned a few awards and recognitions from 2013 to 2022. They continue to update and improve initiatives as part of their roadmap to cater to the DEIB needs of the organisation and its people.
This DEIB Roadmap to an Inclusive Workplace has earned EDP awards and recognition globally each year since launching, as well as the strengthening this positioning through commitments: the Target Gender Equality program from UN Global Compact, The Valuable 500, Equal by 30, Bloomberg Target Gender-Equality, Women's Empowerment Principles (UN), Meta Nacional para a Igualdade de Género (UN Global Compact Portugal), Aliança para a Igualdade nas TIC (APPDI and Projeto Engenheiras por Um Dia), or Empresa Cidadã (Brazil).
Implementation
As part of this roadmap, EDP created a business case for 2020-2022 with 15 challenges, each addressing different stages of the employee experience journey to promote a sense of inclusion and belonging. These challenges were consolidated into eight clusters:
- Talent pipeline: the company aimed to increase women's participation globally (25%) and in leadership positions (25%) and increase women in the recruitment process (to 31%).
- Retention: EDP sought to understand and improve women's organisational support (turnover - 3% male/2% female; enablement 74% men/77% female).
- Equal Pay: EDP is committed to closing the gender pay gap in each market.
- Multicultural teams: more teams representing more nationalities in each country (41 nationalities; 2% of people working outside their country of origin).
- Young talent pipeline: focused on preparing for and welcoming Generation Z (49%) and increasing the participation of young leaders (31%).
- Collaborative mindset: considered the driver to create a more agile workplace and provide development support for all generations.
- Inclusive culture: through recruiting more people with disabilities (1,20%).
- Inclusive recruitment: encouraging diversity of thought, improving metrics on diversity and inclusion, and upgrading D&I training to drive inclusion.
Identifying these challenges was critical for EDP to monitor the evolution of these indicators and determine actions in a closer, justified, and timely manner. Since the definition of these metrics, many of these indicators have evolved positively. For the 2023-2026 cycle, EDP has revised this strategy, its objectives and targets and its governance model.
From challenges to a roadmap of initiatives
Tackling these challenges in 2020 required the creation of two vital elements: an Inclusion Office and a Strategy & Action Plan.
Establishing an Inclusion Office has allowed EDP to consolidate all the measures to achieve its 2020-2022 D&I Roadmap with a greater focus on diversity and inclusion issues. This included managing cross-cutting projects that ensured the continuity of partnerships, commitments, initiatives, and internal projects.
The Inclusion Office is also responsible for multidisciplinary teams, called Inclusion Waves, consisting of EDP employees from various business units, genders, generations, and age groups that encourage reflection over D&I themes. They also help define action plans for the four dimensions: gender, disabilities, generations, and cultures. Over time, this initiative has had various configurations: Workplace by Facebook sharing groups, ERGs, or working groups.
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The results of the practice
Results are published on their website, and their 2026 goals are also clear there. EDP's commitment and transparency around its goals is public and clear.
Regarding gender diversity, they show:
- 27,5% female representation globally
- 30,4% female representation in top management positions
- 28,7% female representation in junior management positions
- 28,4% female representation in leadership positions
- 31,1% female representation in new admissions
- 13% female representation in STEM positions
- 40% female representation in the Executive Board of Directors
- 38% female representation in the General and Supervisory Board
Results obtained regarding generations indicated:
- 7,8% of employees belong to Generation Z
- 53,1% of employees belong to Generation Y
- 28,9% of employees belong to Generation X
- 10,3% of employees belong to Generation Baby Boomers
- 42,1% of leadership positions are performed by Gen Y.
Employee feedback results reveal high favourability on aspects directly related to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace:
- 89% feel proud to work for EDP.
- 83% are comfortable expressing different opinions from their team.
- 82% agree that work gives a sense of personal accomplishment.
- 80% feel they really belong at the company.
- 79% agree all employees are treated fairly, regardless of their differences.
