Planning a future that reconciles economy and ecology, local and global, individual and collective: this is the approach with which we proceed along our pathway.
We undertake to guide the cultural and infrastructural change needed by our towns and cities, our communities, thanks to a diversified business model, unique in Italy, and to the quality of our portfolio of assets positioned along the entire value chain of energy, of waste and of water.
We believe that being a Life Company means moving towards full integration of ESGs into business strategies, thus fostering Italy’s sustainable development.
Ours, then, is a transformation plan that is 10 years long, with ambitious objectives of growth and sustainability, that sets out to create industrial synergies between the Group’s various activities through the development of our competences and the reconversion of infrastructures in order to give life to a complete ecological transition.
In the first two years of our ten-year plan, 2021 and 2022, we have already completed industrial investments amounting to 3.5 billion euros in the areas of the circular economy and energy transition.
The uncertain economic context and its impacts on our Strategic Plan, such as the increase in procurement costs, the increased nominal value of credits and the increased cost of debt, have made necessary an update for the coming years of the Plan, adopting a more cautious approach, maintaining our ten-year objectives and revising investments with greater focus on the management of risks arising from the new current context.
The update of the 2021-2030 Plan carries forward the strategy of the latest version released and confirms the trends of the circular economy and of the energy transition as pillars of the evolution of A2A. The changed context calls for discontinuity in the approach to investments, which will be more selective, focusing on core businesses and the domestic market, and characterised by greater organic growth. The adoption of a flexible approach to investments and financial indicators will be fundamental in guaranteeing the Group’s economic stability.
The circular economy and the energy transition embrace A2A’s entire activity. The international geopolitical context, the evolution of the climate emergency and the need for greater energy autonomy have contributed to making our Plan’s strategic pillars even more solid: the circular economy and the energy transition. The latest update of the ten-year Plan confirms the strategic priority of the ecological transition. In Italy, we are leaders in the circular economy and have accelerated the shift from fossil sources to renewable ones to achieve a real energy transition, a condition necessary to ensure progressive independence from foreign energy providers.
Notes:
1 Including electricity production and heat production (electricity equivalent) from WtE
2 Including solid biomass, biogas, biomethane and hydrogen. Electricity production considered for solid biomass and biogas, TWheq considered for biomethane and hydrogen using a conversion factor
The events of 2022 have highlighted the need to achieve decarbonisation by 2050 and have underlined the importance of targets relating to greenhouse gas emissions foreseen in the Paris Agreement.
Our strategic plan provides a clear roadmap showing us the way to meet these needs in as short a time as possible. We have thus decided to bring forward our zero emissions target by 10 years.
By 2040, we will achieve carbon neutrality for direct and indirect emissions (Scope 1 and Scope 2) through a balanced and gradual mix of action: development of renewable energies, carbon capture solutions and the phase-down of carbon-intensive businesses.
This virtuous pathway foresees the improvement of the Group’s 2030 emission factor with respect to the target set by the Science Based Targets initiative (226 gCO2/kWh in the current Piano vs 230 gCO2/kWh SBTi certified) and thus a 49% cut in our specific emissions compared to 2017.
Per la realizzazione della transizione ecologicaFor completion of the ecology transition
For development of the energy transition
For the circular economy
of investments in line with SDGs
of investments in line with EU taxonomy
The Update of the Strategic Plan, characterized by flexibility, cautiousness, risk management and financial resources optimization, pushes towards focusing on distinctive businesses in the domestic market, through organic growth. The investment targets of the first ten-year Plan are confirmed.
We apply our raison d’être – Life Company – to all the choices of investment and allocation of resources: each decision is taken in consideration of ESG criteria. We have also identified challenging objectives in the social and governance dimensions in which we operate.
During 2022, our Leadership in Health & Safety programme has continued, offering all of our workforce the tools they need to work safely. At the same time, we have set up a Technical Academy to make the most of corporate know-how and promote an exchange of skills between different generations. Excellent results have been obtained in the sphere of diversity, inclusion and harnessing the potential of human resources with 25% of disabled staff included in personal development projects and 12% of employees with formally set objectives. Our ambition is to get both figures to 100% by 2030.
Measures to make the supply chain sustainable have continued, confirmed by the progress made in 2022, with 60% of orders placed with ESG-rated suppliers and the publication of a sustainable procurement policy statement. The Plan confirms our commitment to achieving, by 2030, a level of sustainability criteria in the vendor rating process above 30%, and 90% of orders placed with ESG-rated suppliers.
For us at A2A, innovation remains a key factor in the creation of an ecosystem that is open, shared and interconnected. In 2022, the Group entered the Eureka and Tech4Planet funds and assigned 17 million euros to the development of seven start-ups, focusing on the energy transition and the circular economy through the main venture fund, A+360. We spread the culture of innovation by fostering the shared and ongoing participation of employees in various initiatives (idea competitions, intrapreneurship programmes, etc.); in 2022, more than 3,000 employees were involved, making 342 proposals from which 10 ideas emerged and have become projects.
Our sustainable finance position was further strengthened in 2022. In the course of the year, we issued three sustainable bond loans for a total of about 1.8 billion euros. Furthermore, in June 2022, we endorsed a 410-million-euro sustainability-linked revolving credit line.
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