News

Too many unexpired medicines and in whole packs end up in the wastebasket, resulting in health and disposal costs. It is possible to recover and hand them over to those in charge of people in difficulty. From these premises and with this objective comes the Protocol of intent on the recovery of donated drugs, approved in the last session of the Council, and signed by the Emilia-Romagna Region (Department for Health Policies), Hera and Last Minute Market, in order to promote good practices on medicines throughout Emilia-Romagna, encouraging the recovery of unused medicines, limiting negative impacts on the environment, reducing the amount of waste that requires particular management systems. At the same time, the signatories aim to support the Third Sector projects aimed at waste prevention, to enhance the results and to promote the activation of new ones; but also to organize initiatives to sensitize public administrations and citizens.

This is a good practice that has long been applied by Hera. Thanks to the Farmacoamico project, active since 2012, about 53,000 packs of unexpired medicines have been reused over the last year for a total of Euro 670,000.

The Integrated Governance Index 2018 was presented in Milan on 19 June. It is the only model to analyze the degree of integration of ESG factors in company strategies and was built on the basis of the answers that 47 among the top 100 Italian listed companies provided a questionnaire of about forty questions.

Hera ranked fifth in the general classification and ranked first in the extraordinary survey on relations with sustainable finance. The research confirms the growing awareness of the need to integrate sustainability into the strategies of companies and highlights an interest that increasingly concerns the company's different roles with respect to the CSR manager, in particular in finance area.

Over 200 people attended the event for the presentation of the 2017 Sustainability Report, which has been completely revamped and focused on creating shared value. 

The event, part of the European Week for Sustainable Development and the Asvis Festival of Sustainable Development and entitled "The ecosystem and its unity: a challenge for the sustainable future", was held this afternoon at Hera’s headquarters in Bologna. Guest of honour was Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, who has played a key role in formulating the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identified by the UN Agenda for 2030. 10 of these 17 goals direct the development strategies of Hera Group in the area of ​​sustainable growth and contribute to the creation and development of the GPM (Gross Profit Margin) at shared value. Also participating in the event were Enrico Giovannini, spokesman for Asvis, Federico Testa, President of Enea, Marco Frey, President of Global Compact Italia, Stefano Domenicali, President and CEO of Lamborghini, and Mario Cerutti, Chief Sustainability Officer of Lavazza.

To see the page on the event visit the Conference of June 4, 2018

Sustainability Report 2017

Hera CSV

Hera has entered into an agreement with four credit institutions for the activation of a new sustainable credit line of Euro 200 million. The agreement is the first of its kind in Italy. 

The new credit line, called "ESG Linked RCF Facility", introduces elements of sustainability through a reward mechanism based on the achieving of specific environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals.  In the commitment signed with the banks, in fact, specific objectives have been defined for certain ESG performance indicators; when these goals are reached, the multi-utility company will be able to benefit from more favourable rates. These sustainability goals include further reducing the carbon footprint resulting from energy production, achieving new targets for energy efficiency and improving separate waste collection.

In defining the agreement, Hera Group collaborated with Vigeo Eiris, a leading European social and environmental rating agency. Vigeo Eiris has drawn up an independent opinion on the relevance of the indicators identified and the degree of ambition regarding future improvement of the indicators themselves, to which the margin of the operation is linked.

The banks involved were: BBVA, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole CIB and UniCredit.

Hera is one of 13 companies and associations which, together with the Foundation for Sustainable Development, have created the Circular Economy Network, the circularity observatory in Italy. 

The observatory was founded to promote the development of the circular economy in Italy, formulating policy proposals and helping to spread good practices and further system innovation. In order to tackle the transition to a circular economy we will need new business models that enable raw materials to remain in the economic cycle for as long as possible and products to reach the end of their life cycle after repeated re-use. Our country holds a position of excellence in what is an actual economic and productive revolution, which will bring about the complete redesigning of industrial design, new products and services and new companies, together with a further leap in quality in the recycling of waste.

All these subjects will be addressed by the observatory in its future activities.