In 2003 COPEL developed an integrated corporate management and planning model to focus the Organization efforts on ensuring, based on our corporate values and on optimized process management, that the interests of our shareholders, customers, society, and employees, and the needs of survival and growth of the Company are properly met.

This new strategy emphasizes productivity, cost reduction, and better short-term use of assets without detriment to promoting medium and long-term growth. Particular attention shall be given to growth starting in 2005.

COPEL's New Strategic Frame of Reference:

Core Values

COPEL's core values, which direct the course of its corporate businesses internally and externally as well as the conduct of its employees, directors, officers and managers, are:

•  Ethics: having open, honest and balanced relations with all stakeholders.
•  Social responsibility: conducting corporate businesses in a sustainable manner, with due respect for the rights of all stakeholders, including future generations.
•  Strategic alliances: forming partnerships and cooperating with all sectors of the Company and of society at large so as to harmonize goals and maximize results.
•  Commitment: employing one's best endeavors in the pursuit of the corporate mission, striving for excellence in performance.
•  Continuous improvement: learning, sharing and disseminating knowledge continuously.
•  Risk-taking: making decisions, daring, and undertaking initiatives as entrepreneurs.
•  Employee recognition: fostering human growth by recognizing the employee's value both as an individual and as a team player and providing for continuous improvement of workers' satisfaction, skills and professional development.
•  Clarity of goals: assuring a clear definition and open communication of the Company's strategic orientation.
•  Customer satisfaction: bearing in mind, in every corporate pursuit, that customers are the reason for the Company's existence.
•  Shareholder value: striving to achieve responsible profits in the fulfillment of the Company's mission.
•  Security: conducting corporate businesses with professionalism in order to ensure the Company's perpetuity and prioritizing people's security.

Mission

To generate, transmit, distribute, and market energy, as well as to render related services, promoting sustainable development with returns for the people of Paraná.

Vision

To be the best electric utility in Brazil by 2006, maintaining a balance between the interests of society and of the Company's stockholders.

Ethical commitments

Our corporate core values were determined based on a survey comprising 40% of all employees carried out in December 2002. This survey also contributed to the preparation of our new Code of Conduct. Together with the Code, a Conduct Evaluation Committee was established, composed of nine members and headed by a representative of civil society in order to ensure greater transparency. This process has made COPEL review its goals in respect of ethical, social, evaluation, and communication performance. And it will be consolidated in 2004 with the release of COPEL's Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability Policy, which is based on its Environmental Policy, on its Strategic Frame of Reference (Mission Statement, Vision Statement, Core Values), and on the principles of the Global Compact .

Global Compact

Since 2001 COPEL has adhered to the Global Compact - an alliance between the United Nations and the international business community to promote sustainable growth centered on more humane values - and has fully upheld its nine principles:

Human Rights
I. Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and
II. make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Labor Standards
III. Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
IV. the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labor;
V. the effective abolition of child labor; and
VI. the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Environment
VII. Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
VIII. undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and
IX. encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

Fight Against Corruption
X. Businesses should fight corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

The United Nations also proposed in 2000 a set of goals, to be reached by 2015, to reduce the brutal social inequalities and to promote the planet's environmental sustainability. These goals have been associated worldwide with the principles of the Global Compact , so they can be translated into effective actions by the member companies throughout the world. Accordingly, COPEL, as a member of the Compact, has sought to contribute to the awareness and accomplishment of these goals:

•  To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;
•  To attain universal basic education;
•  To promote equality between the genders and the independence of women;
•  To reduce child death rates;
•  To improve the health of women with children;
•  To fight HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;
•  To ensure environmental sustainability;
•  To establish a Worldwide Partnership for Development.