ACCIONA, title sponsor for Spain’s first golf Open with positive impact

• REGENERATIVE DESIGN. The tournament will protect natural surroundings, while benefiting local communities and offsetting carbon, water and environmental footprint with emission reduction certificates

ACCIONA will be the title sponsor of the Spanish Golf Open, which will be renamed ACCIONA Open de España, and will be held between October 7^th-10^th 2021 at the Club de Campo Villa de Madrid facilities, in the Spanish capital. In addition, the company has agreed with Madrid Trophy Promotions, organizer of the tournament, to transform the event into the first competition of the European Tour with a positive environmental and social impact, in line with the regenerative objectives of ACCIONA’s Sustainability Master Plan 2025.

ACCIONA has collaborated with the competition’s organizer in accrediting the tournament in accordance with the international certification UNE-ISO 20121:2013 Sustainability Management Systems for Events. More than 120-top level player will be taking part in the competition- among them, world No. 1 Jon Rahm. The ACCIONA Open de España will therefore be the first event that Madrid Trophy Promotion will organize after receiving this official certification, granted by SGS (Societé Genéralé de Surveillance).

ACCIONA will implement a variety of sustainable solutions during the tournament to neutralize any detrimental effects on Madrid's natural or social environment, favoring economies of scale, and ensuring a positive net impact that will remain as a legacy and a serve as a reference for future competitions.

In this way, the company, which has been carbon neutral since 2016, is committed to integrating its culture of sustainability into one of the main international sporting events to be held in Madrid in 2021, all while contributing to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

With this objective, ACCIONA will analyze the carbon, water and environmental footprint in all areas of the complete event cycle:

1. Transportation and mobility of participants, workers and attendees.
2. Water and energy production.
3. Production of restaurant and catering materials, including food, containers, glasses and cutlery.
4. Production of infrastructure materials (structures, tarpaulins, etc.).
5. Transportation of purchases and infrastructure.
6. Transportation and management of waste generated during the event.

The solutions that will be implemented as part of the sustainability proposal will focus on the areas of greatest impact, mainly safety, health, environmental awareness, sustainable purchasing, electric mobility and efficient consumption of water and clean energy.

In this sense, to optimize travel, for example, the use of electric vehicles and public transport will be prioritized, and attendees of the ACCIONA Open de España –more than 25,000 people are expected to attend– will be provided with adequate planning information to reduce any possible damage to the environment.

The data obtained from calculating the carbon footprint generated throughout the tournament cycle, including the travel of the participating players and their teams, will be used to determine the real value of final emissions and to then process their compensation through the acquisition of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), granted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

On this occasion, the required CERs will come from ACCIONA's Oaxaca wind power complex in Mexico. The generation of clean energy from this facility avoids the production of 670 tons of CO2 each year and provides social benefits to more than 20,000 people in local communities.

This compensation will ensure the carbon neutrality of the ACCIONA Open de España, which will be a "zero emissions" event. However, ACCIONA will also go a step further, and has commit to designing a "positive impact" tournament by planting trees in the Community of Madrid that will additionally reduce a volume of emissions equivalent to those being offset.

ACCIONA intends for players themselves to join in on the sustainable and regenerative aspects of the ACCIONA Open de España and, to this end, will include a special distinction into the competition for the five best-ranked participants at the end of the tournament, called the 'ACCIONA Emissions Under Par Award'.

This award, in line with the company's commitment to sustainable regeneration, and with the existing initiatives of the City Council and the Community of Madrid, will be to plant trees in the name of each winning player (between 3,000 and 4,500 trees in total), which will multiply, depending on the player's position in the ranking, up to ten times the carbon offset that each of them and their teams are estimated to generate over the course of a full sporting season.