The CEO of Abengoa, Manuel Sánchez, gave a lecture at lecture to the students of School of Economics at the University of Navarra, in which he advocated facing the energy challenges facing our society through professional work "centered on ethics", capable of developing a "humanist capitalism" and combining "social responsibility, economic responsibility and environmental responsibility".

Sánchez has advocated for "a proper business ethic" to be able to handle future growth forecasts, since in 2050 it is estimated that there will be 9 billion inhabitants on Earth, "and this means a great challenge to guarantee increasing quality of life expectations", he stressed. "We have less and less fossil fuels and less and less water, and already today 2.5 billion people do not have access to electricity and 2.8 billion do not have access to drinking water," he warned.

These same forecasts estimate that in 2035 the planet's energy consumption will increase by 35% compared to the present, and by 85% in the case of water. Sánchez described Education as "fundamental" in a "sustainabledevelopment ": "We have to support the cost so that future generations can obtain the benefits, but the problem is that we are doing it the other way round", he warned.

Economic impact of climate change

As greenhouse gas emissions "are increasing exponentially" and the Kyoto Protocol protocol "has not helped", Sánchez warned that "the economic impact of this climate change is billions". Fossil energy is wasted and not renewed, nuclear energy has failed due to pollution... and energy is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

In October 2010, Manuel Sánchez was appointed CEO of Abengoa in October 2010. Abengoa is a business corporation that applies technology solutions for sustainable development in the energy and environment sectors: it generates electricity from renewable resources, transforms biomass into biofuels and produces drinking water from seawater, among other activities.