Stories

SDG7 Startup of the week: ISENER

"Our mission is to facilitate the transition to a sustainable energy model both at an environmental and a social level, capable of bringing a more empathetic future. "

20.02.2020.

Aspiring to a more sustainable world has become a key purpose for millions of citizens, business and political leaders today. How companies behave socially and ethically is in the crosshairs of customers and partners. It is essential for their own sustainability to comply with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and build an organizational strategy based on values. The efficient management of energy consumption is a prerequisite for the economic sustainability of organizations. ISENER’s FORESIGHT is becoming a benchmark of good practice as a facilitator for the Sustainable Development Goal #7 of the 2030 Agenda. 

What is the mission of ISENER?

Our mission is to facilitate the transition to a sustainable energy model both at an environmental and a social level, capable of bringing a more empathetic future.  As the Institute for Sustainable Energy, ISENER provides independent, clear and rigorous information that helps the different social agents make decisions focusing on the necessary implication towards the transition to a sustainable energy model. ISENER always considers the impact and benefit to all the groups of interest; the risks and the long-term sustainability. In order to achieve the aforementioned, ISENER develops different tools for impact evaluation and gives advice not only in technical issues but also in management, going hand in hand in the definition of objectives, strategies, and indicators. Our customers not only want products and services that contribute to sustainable development, but also a reasonable pricing policy and professional service. Therefore, the organization seeks to provide a set of appropriate services with a holistic approach that contributes to a sustainable energy supply.  The aim is to establish valuable and transparent relationships with their customers that focus on the following four key areas.

We had the pleasure to hear from founder Sonia Ramos Galdo, and learn where did the idea to found the ISENER come from.

What public problem are you working to solve and why?

I am trying to solve the negative impacts that the current energy model has on women and children, additionally to climate change.

Access to energy services is a prerequisite for achieving human development (at a personal, national and international level), nevertheless, 1.3 billion people worldwide live with no electricity and, 3 billion are still cooking and heating their homes with solid fuel in open fires and leaky stoves.

Women and child are mostly affected by fuel poverty and its impacts;

• They spend more time and effort in preparing and cooking food with no mechanical help limiting their education and economic growth opportunities
• They have major health risks associated:
  • 4.3 million women and their children die prematurely every year due to diseases attributable to indoor air pollution caused by the inefficient use of solid fuels for cooking (higher than the sum of deaths from malaria and AIDS)
  • 99% of childbirth deaths occur in developing countries with poor health services that lack energy infrastructures.

Furthermore, the excess in energy consumption in industrialized countries has been proven not to produce extra development.

Hence, our addiction to fuel fossils is related to most of the armed conflicts in the world in the last decades. Energy is also related to the 50% of CO2 emissions, and climate change is a result of this.

What is the next phase of your work? What do you most need to help you achieve it?

I found the INSTITUTE OF SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, an organization whose mission is to facilitate energy transition towards a more sustainable and solidary energy model, able to redirect inefficient energy surplus from industrialized countries to developing ones:

1. To establish a permanent Research, Innovation and Knowledge Transfer Program in Cooperation with Developing Countries, with a gender perspective as a requirement, involving citizens in the design process, in order to look for technical and social solutions as a means to solve the problem.
2. To push and help the local, regional and national administrations in order to assume their international commitment with SDG 7  and support action 1
3. To help companies to introduce the SDG7 in their energy management indicators in order to increase their energy efficiency, reduce their social and environmental impacts and compensate their residual impacts supporting action 1
4. To raise awareness among citizens to urge their leaders to develop actions 2 and 3 and facilitate their individual contributions

Resources are needed in order to move forward and increase the impact, to enroll in international networks and raise support from powerful advisors and international leaders in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals.

You can also meet the founder in the interview for the Global Women´s Network for Energy Transition.

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