Each year, Enel Generación Chile, in partnership with the Sembra Association, organizes a call to participate in the "Coronel Emprende" competition -based fund open to the entire micro-business community of Coronel. Its objective is to promote local ventures and create value. The calls for projects offer funding that ranges between 1 and 5 million pesos and which are subsequently implemented following the guidance offered by the Sembra Association.

The fund finances the acquisition of physical assets necessary to undertake different business ventures, materials that are used directly or indirectly in the production process of the goods or services offered, such as tools, equipment, and the implementation of technological elements, including computer hardware and/or software.

For Enel, local entrepreneurs play an important role, and the Company employs the community's workforce and suppliers who are also local. However, Coronel's entrepreneurial eco-system does not have the capacity to provide guidance, funding and supervision to all vulnerable entrepreneurs who require such orientation. The quotas of productive promotion programs, for example those provided by FOSIS and SERCOTEC, are insufficient.

At the same time, the Covid 19 health emergency made women abandon their jobs as they were forced to start caring for children and older adults and take on unpaid domestic tasks. Informal employment has also become more precarious.

Furthermore, and in relation to the construction of the Bocamina Unit II, Enel implemented the Resettlement Plan. It involved moving more than 1,200 families from the Lo Rojas sector to nine other neighborhoods around the municipality. The residents who were active in a specific economic area and generated income in their original locations were forced to reactivate their ventures on their own in their new destinations. The results were diverse, and while some families were able to recover their source of income, others were not. However, as the World Bank International Finance Corporation's Involuntary Resettlement Standard 5 points out, this obligatory resettlement is a gap that Enel must address.

For Enel, the competition-based fund provides the communities with tools that will permit them to create value, at the same time promoting the economic development of the relevant stakeholders and contributing to achieving Enel´s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goal 8 of "Decent Work and Economic Growth". It also permits to close the gap identified in the resettlement analysis, according to the IFC standard, concerning the economic capital of the resettled families. In its fourth version, the fund set up an exclusive line that targets the families who participated in the Enel Resettlement Plan.

The fund has made it possible for Enel to install and validate "green", circular, and sustainable ventures in Coronel while at the same time protecting and promoting the town´s historical heritage.

This program is linked to the "Economic development with local identity and green jobs" line of work. During the 2017-2019 period, "Coronel Emprende" has supported 140 projects, 72 of them led by women, reaching a total of 924 beneficiaries.

In 2020, "Coronel Emprende" launched its call in a particularly delicate context due to the health and safety measures that had to be implemented because of the Covid 19 pandemic. Adapting its procedures, the entire process of dissemination, replying to enquiries and the final reception of projects was carried out on the phone, and  by digital and other virtual means.