We are committed every day to promoting research and development activities, with the aim of implementing and furthering innovative, smart services for Group processes and for the community.
The Group promotes and invests in research and development activities aimed at enhancing and consolidating the digital knowledge of its internal resources, thereby ensuring that the Group's services and infrastructures are periodically updated and computerized. A2A also implements smart solutions for more sustainable
neighborhoods and cities.
In today's ever-changing business environment, organisations can no longer think of innovation as a purely internal process. It is therefore necessary to operate in an open, widespread and interconnected innovation ecosystem in order to create shared value for more sustainable development.
The Open Innovation paradigm, therefore, involves opening-up innovation processes beyond one's own borders to intercept flows of knowledge, ideas and new perspectives.
For A2A, the first concrete step in this direction was the creation of a shared platform to connect Group colleagues, start-ups, companies and the world of research in order to contribute to the creation of value in the territories where it operates. The platform allows end-to-end management of project development, but also
innovation initiatives such as "Call for Ideas", idea generation activities, hackathons and challenges.
Some 2021 numbers
190
Initiatives included in the Digital Transformation Plan
540
Projects presented in the first Corporate Intrapreneurship scheme involving Group employees.
3,400
Electrical substations equipped with fibre optic cabling
Actions
Corporate Venture Capital e Corporate Intrapreneurship
The Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) programme of the A2A Group was created in 2019 to promote the Group's innovation through investments in early stage start-ups operating in strategic businesses in line with the Group's Business Plan.
The CVC programme's budget to date amounts to approximately 40 million euro divided into funds from different managers including 360 Capital, Eureka! Venture SGR, CDP Venture Capital – Fondo Nazionale Innovazione.
With 360 Capital, a dedicated fund named "A+360" was set up (with A2A as sole investor - limited partner) with which eight investments in startups at European level have been made to date (new battery based on the thermodynamic cycle and the use of carbon dioxide; digitalization and automation of waste cycle processes; energy trading as a service (TaaS) platform equipped with advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, which aims to promote energy transition and make electricity grids more flexible; computer vision-based solution for the inspection of wastewater networks; plug-and-play photovoltaic panel kit for the self-generation of electricity in residential settings; software for the digitalization of maintenance processes in large production facilities; a technology for the removal of heavy and precious metals
from industrial wastewater; sustainable flow cell battery for large-scale stationary energy storage applications through the utilization of petrochemical industry by-products).
The Corporate Intrapreneurship initiative Call For Ideas, which started in 2021 with over 3,000 participants, 540 ideas and eight finalist teams, continued in 2022. Its success led to the Group launching its second Corporate Intrapreneurship initiative in 2022, aimed at all Group employees: the "Call For Sustainability".
It was entirely dedicated to the challenges of the "Climate Tech" world, to stimulate the generation of valuable ideas by colleagues on topics related to the energy transition and the circular economy while
supporting the corporate entrepreneurship process. The first place team in the Call for Sustainability participated in a real "Tech Mission" in Israel, in order to discover the Israeli innovation ecosystem and interact with local start-ups and Incubators.
In 2022, the Group launched a series of research projects focused on the identification and development of technologies for the capture, storage and utilization of the carbon dioxide emitted by its plants, to achieve the challenging goals of reducing climate-changing emissions. The various projects currently underway include:
- definition of the technology "road map";
- "Herccules - Calcium Looping" project: financed by the European Union under the Horizon fund to build an experimental carbon dioxide capture plant based on Calcium Looping technology at the Milan waste-to-energy plant;
- "Potassium Carbonate" project: for the use of potassium carbonate adsorption technology in the CO2 capture process from waste-to-energy fumes;
- development of a test plant for CO2absorbent solutions to identify substances to capture carbon dioxide from combustion fumes, ensuring high capture efficiency and low energy consumption.
Brand Reputation
In 2022 the Group continued to develop A2A brand awareness and recognizability through the "one brand"
strategy, launched with the repositioning to Life Company, in which the A2A Life Company motherbrand guides the communication of all the A2A Group companies in the matrix and becomes an important endorsement in all the other companies.
Thanks to this strategy, brand awareness at national level was 52.5% in December 2022, up 6.4% compared to 2021 and an impressive 14.5 points compared to 2020.
