FIELD NOTES FROM DAY 3: CORAL LABS, TALENT PIPELINES, AND A BOUTIQUE ESG PARTNER

PT. Mitra Rekayasa Keberlanjutan – By the third morning of ACWA Power’s CSR Gathering, the agenda had outgrown the hotel.

Buses rolled out of Jeddah toward Rabigh, carrying CSR leads, project managers, and sustainability specialists away from slides and meeting rooms and into the real-world ecosystem where corporate promises are supposed to turn into public value. Day 3 was designed as a walking tour of ACWA Power’s “enablers”: the partnerships, talent systems, and technical disciplines that make its CSR strategy more than a document.

The first stop made that intention clear.

Coral Labs: Where Climate and Biodiversity Become Investable

The day opened with a visit to CORDAP, the G20-backed initiative funding research and innovation to restore the world’s coral reefs.

Earlier in the year, CORDAP had maintained an interactive presence in Jeddah, using exhibits and demonstrations to showcase how reef science is evolving—from lab-based research to pilot deployments in vulnerable marine ecosystems. In the Day 3 programme, it served a different purpose: a live case of how climate and biodiversity goals can be translated into investable projects.

For the ACWA Power delegation, CORDAP offered a tangible example of what strong CSR and sustainability teams are increasingly expected to broker:

• Cross-sector collaboration grounded in science
• Clear pathways from R&D to field deployment
• Financing structures that link environmental restoration to long-term value

In a world of net-zero commitments and nature-positive pledges, CORDAP looked less like a charity partner and more like the kind of strategic ally that utility-scale players will need if they want their climate and biodiversity ambitions to stand up to scrutiny.

Talent Pipelines: The Energy & Water Academy as Local Backbone

Source: MIREKEL Documentation

From Jeddah, the group continued up the Red Sea coast to Rabigh to visit one of ACWA Power’s most important “invisible assets”: the Energy & Water Academy (EWA).

Founded in 2009 in partnership with TVTC, EWA functions as a specialist training hub for Saudi talent in plant operations, desalination, and emerging technologies. For a company running gigawatt-scale power plants and large desalination facilities, the Academy is more than a corporate social responsibility initiative; it is the backbone of local value creation and operational resilience.

EWA’s role is threefold:

• Build certified technicians and operators who can step directly into plant roles
• Align human capital development with Vision 2030’s localisation and skills agenda
• Tighten safety, reliability, and performance on site by reducing skill gaps

In practical terms, EWA turns scholarships and training budgets into a talent pipeline—one that links young Saudis to real jobs in high-value sectors, while giving ACWA Power a workforce that understands both the technology and the communities it serves.

Day 3’s itinerary, moving from coral labs to classrooms and simulators, made a quiet but pointed statement: climate resilience and social impact aren’t just about external projects; they are also about who runs your plants and how ready they are for the next wave of technology.

The Boutique Partner Behind the Methods

If CORDAP and EWA showcased ACWA Power’s external and in-house engines, the methodology behind the three-day programme carried a distinct signature: MIREKEL (PT Mitra Rekayasa Keberlanjutan).

Based in Indonesia and founded in 2018, MIREKEL operates as a boutique ESG/CSR consultancy specialising in:

• Environmental and Social Due Diligence (ESDD)
• Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA)
• Impact planning and management
• Building Environmental and Social Management Systems (ESMS) to lender standards

In the Jeddah workshops, that boutique character was visible in the details. Rather than centering on frameworks as abstractions, the facilitation kept pulling participants back to what lenders, regulators, and communities actually see:

• Risk registers and mitigation plans
• Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP) timelines
• Grievance mechanisms and response routes
• Biodiversity triggers and follow-up actions

The emphasis was on sequencing and usability: if a project team had only a few hours to act, which steps would come first, and which documents would need to be updated immediately?

In practice, MIREKEL’s small, senior, field-tested style paired neatly with ACWA Power’s scale. The company brought the global portfolio, Vision 2030 context, and capital intensity; the boutique partner brought checklists, templates, and hard-earned judgment from multi-country ESG assignments.

CSR as an Enabling System, Not an Island

Strategically, ACWA Power has the heft to make these pieces matter.

By the end of 2024, the company had reached:

• 94 assets in operation and development
• USD 97.2 billion in total investment

Within that footprint, ACWA Power’s sustainability strategy positions CSR as an enabling system for delivery, not a stand-alone programme on the side. That system spans a wide spectrum:

• Tree-planting and land rehabilitation linked to the Saudi Green Initiative (SGI)
• Community water access projects in underserved areas
• Employee wellbeing programmes woven into core benefits and culture

The common denominator is intentionality: community and environmental impact that is auditable, local, and linked to performance—the kind of impact that can be referenced in lender discussions, regulatory reviews, and board-level ESG reports.

In that light, Day 3’s sequence—from CORDAP to EWA to the methodological backbone provided by MIREKEL—reads as more than a field trip. It is a map of how ACWA Power is trying to operationalise its CSR ambitions: through partnerships, talent systems, and disciplined ESG execution.

From Reefs to Recruitment Pipelines

Looking back on the three days, external facilitator Aldi Muhammad Alizar summed up the learning arc succinctly:

“Across three days, participants didn’t just learn acronyms—they practiced decisions. From coral reefs to recruitment pipelines, CSR only scales when standards like the World Bank ESF are translated into checklists teams can use tomorrow.”

In Jeddah and on the road to Rabigh, that translation work felt very much in motion.

Day 3 closed not with a grand announcement, but with something more operationally important: teams returning home with a clearer sense of how ACWA Power CSR connects coral restoration, local jobs, lender expectations, and community trust into one continuous line of accountability.

For a company straddling power, water, and climate transitions across 13 countries, that line may be one of its most critical assets.

Sources:

CORDAP (about, news);

EWA (academy site, partner notes);

MIREKEL (about, services);

ACWA Power (Integrated Annual Report 2024, sustainability strategy, SGI commitments).