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Responsible services and projects

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Responsible projects and services

Case study

The satisfaction of people is a fundamental element for Hera Group's growth.
We want to provide environmentally friendly solutions that meet people's needs and offer high quality services. While always respecting the environment and the communities we serve. 
 



Our mission? To be closer to the citizens and increasingly effective in achieving our commitments. By combining our energy with that of the public, we can build the future together.

Find out our Case Studies, you can also find them in the full version of the Sustainability Report (Consolidated non-financial reporting)

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Energy - Pursuing carbon neutrality


Consumption Log

The Consumption Log is a free service that allows customers to compare their consumption with that of a similar virtuous customer in terms of size, province and use of resources over time, and provides useful tips for savings through personalised information on individual and contractual characteristics. At present, this tool is active for all free market electricity, gas and district heating customers, as well as households using water and waste management services.

This report, currently provided to over 750,000 electricity and gas supply points and about 370,000 water and waste management points, aims to make customers constantly aware of their consumption habits over time and the potential effects of optimising them, in order to help them consume less and better.

The Water Consumption Log, available to customers who have provided the company with their e-mail address, allows them to compare their water consumption with that of similar, virtuous users. In addition, it describes their behaviour over time according to the evolution of their consumption and provides useful tips for household savings.

In 2022, the Waste Management Consumption Log was made available to all customers with activated e-mails in the 18 municipalities in which the Unit Pricing Tariff (UPT) is applied. With this tool, customers can compare their own non-sorted waste disposal compared to the previous year and to other residents in the same municipality, and receive useful advice to help them reduce their impact on the environment. The “Access to ecological stations” section indicates their contribution to delivering sorted waste to ecological stations (or collection centres) compared to total deliveries in their city.

SUPPLY POINTS WITH CONSUMPTION LOG

% 2020 2021 2022
Electricity customers (free market and protected households) 26.8% 32.5% 35%
Gas customers (free market and protected households) 15% 19.4% 21.4%
District heating customers 8% 7.9% 7.4%
Water service customers (Hera Spa households) 20% 27% 35%
Waste management services customers (in municipalities with unit pricing) 44.3% 50.6% 42.1%

These figures do not include the following companies: Eco Gas, Con Energia and AresGas.

During 2022, as regards the Energy Services Log, collaboration continued with the Milan Polytechnic concerning the launch of a project aimed at increasing the salience of behavioural interventions, analysing how a certain trending topic can attract a customer’s attention when reading the Consumption Log and how certain related messages can impact on their consumption habits. Furthermore, a project for an integrated report on easily understandable indicators aggregating various resources (electricity, natural gas, water and waste) was initiated, providing customers with a holistic view of their actions and behaviours impacting different consumptions at the same time.

Thanks to the conclusions reached by the Milan Polytechnic, which confirm synergies in reducing water and electricity consumption, the Water Consumption Log was proposed to the Energy Services Manager as an energy saving project for obtaining Energy efficiency certificates. This project proposal comes alongside the one already underway that provides for a recognition of savings in terms of toe (tonnes of oil equivalent) on lots of electricity customers affected by energy saving initiatives based on behavioural indicators, such as the Consumption Log.

How does this initiative contribute to responsible digital transformation? The benefits achieved in Corporate digital responsibility factors

A customised service that helps Customers effectively understand the environmental and economic effects of their behaviour and provides advice through applications for waste reduction. The report can be consulted on various apps (Online Services and MyHera App).

Creation of a digital service aimed at promoting and communicating more sustainable behaviour, with less waste and greater customer awareness of consumption habits.
 
Quantification of savings related to the reduction of waste caused by more sustainable consumption habits.

 

The Consumption Log contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 7.3, 11.3, 11.6 and 12.8, as well as – through the involvement of customers and residents – goal 17.17.


Hydrogen in the gas distribution network in Modena

Inrete Distribuzione Energia has initiated trials to supply the gas distribution network with a mixture of hydrogen and methane. This project aims to explore the possibilities of decarbonising household and municipal uses of gas by feeding hydrogen (which by its nature has no carbon content) into city distribution networks.

The activities began in Castelfranco Emilia, near Modena, in October 2022, involving roughly thirty households, and were the first trial of this kind in Italy. The aim is to study innovative solutions for the use of green gases, which are energy vectors with a low environmental impact that can contribute to the decarbonising local areas, with important benefits for the environment.

This trial is part of the Hera Group’s broader strategy for developing hydrogen, in a twofold perspective. On the one hand, it will see the Group’s assets evolve, first and foremost its own gas distribution networks, and on the other, new business opportunities will be created, which Hera can seize by leveraging its multi-business skills, including partnerships with other major industrial operators.

Moreover, hydrogen is a vector that can be produced in “zero km” industrial processes (specific characteristics and infrastructural features were in fact identified in the Modena area) and therefore the partial replacement of fossil gas with this resource contributes to reducing the energy dependence that characterises traditional fossil sources.

The project was also designed to acquire direct technical data on the distribution and use of mixtures of hydrogen and natural gas using the existing gas network, and is included in the broader set of activities aimed at certifying the Hera Group’s supply chain as qualified to use green gas. These also include the introduction, again in the Modena area, of “hydrogen-ready” gas meters. A few months ago, in fact, Hera’s technicians began installing the new NexMeter, an innovative meter both for its cutting-edge technology and for its advanced safety functions, also in terms of reducing gas dispersion into the atmosphere.

Hydrogen in the Modena gas distribution network contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 7.2, 9.1, 9.2, 9.4 and 11.6.


Aliplast measures the carbon footprint of its products

In order to provide information on the carbon footprint of certain products, since 2018 Aliplast has been carrying out a broad calculation of the carbon footprint of five product types: PE granules, PE films, PET granules, PET plates, PET flakes.

Aliplast commissioned this study in order to carry out research on the environmental performance of these products, as regards global warming, and to quantify the greenhouse gas emissions related to a functional unit of each product (set at one kilogram), in order to identify the phases of their life cycle showing the highest environmental criticalities and intervene so as to reduce their environmental impact. The European impact methodology EF v3.0, developed by the Joint Research Centre for the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) initiative, was used. One of the outcomes of the LCA is the amount of CO2 equivalent, whose calculation method is the IPCC 2013 Gwp 100, contained in EF v3.0.

The project involved analysing the greenhouse gas emissions of Aliplast products and comparing them with those of the corresponding virgin products. The result is expressed in kg of CO2 equivalent involved in production. CO2 equivalent is, indeed, the unit of measurement used to bring greenhouse gas emissions with different climate-changing effects (the so-called Global Warming Potential, GWP) in relation to a single index. CO2 has been taken as a reference by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and its GWP set at 1; other gases are then transformed into CO2 equivalent according to their GWP (a gas with a climate-changing potential 21 times greater than CO2, for example, is counted as 21 tonnes of CO2 equivalent).

From the analysis carried out, it appears that in 2022, a production of roughly 100 thousand tonnes including PE granules, PE films, PET granules, and regenerated PET plates, avoided the production of roughly 170 thousand tonnes of CO2 equivalent, corresponding to more than 400 thousand barrels of oil. The greenhouse gas savings achieved thanks to the contribution of suppliers and customers who choose Aliplast’s recycled products is comparable to the emissions of approximately 100 thousand cars running on gas and travelling 10 thousand kilometres in a year.

Aliplast’s activities contribute to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 11.6, 12.2, 12.4, 12.5 and 13.2.

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Environment - Regenerating resources and closing the circle


European package on circular economy: Hera anticipates the steps

Hera has confirmed its targets on packaging recycling and landfill reduction, showing that it is ahead of both European targets for municipal waste.

In the areas served by the Group, in fact, all 3 main European targets have been met, including those for: landfills (2.3% in 2022, against a target of a maximum of 10% by 2035), packaging (68% in 2021, against a target of 65% by 2025 and 70% by 2030) and the overall recycling rate (57% in 2021, against a target of 55% by 2025, 60% by 2030 and 65% by 2035). Data on the latter two targets will be updated to 2022 in the coming months and as usual published in the report “Tracking waste”.

The report “Tracking waste”, whose thirteenth edition was published in 2022, transparently and comprehensively certifies that the percentage of sorted waste actually recovered by the Group came to 91%, broken down into 84% of material recycling and 7% of energy recovery, the latter only in the plastic and green sectors. This project covered all main materials collected separately: compostable, paper, organic, glass, plastic, wood, iron and metals (aluminium, steel and tinplate packaging).

This report, which covers the entire area served by the Group, indicates a 98% recovery rate for compostable waste and 66% for plastic, as well as 92% material recycling for paper, 91% for organic waste, 94% for glass, 99% for wood, 99% for iron and 94% for metal.

Meeting and exceeding the European municipal waste targets contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 12.2, 12.4, 12.5.

Publishing the report “Tracking Waste” contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goal 12.8.

Hera measures “circularity” with Circulytics

In 2019, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, as part of a collaboration with 13 strategic partners and 30 members of its Network, including Hera, developed a digital tool for measuring circular economy performance, “Circulytics”. This tool supports a company’s transition towards the circular economy, going beyond a simple evaluation of products and material flows and using the broadest set of qualitative-quantitative indicators available, divided into two sections: Enablers, i.e. critical aspects that enable a company to make a broad transformation towards the circular economy (such as business strategy, innovation, human resource management, and stakeholder engagement) and Outcomes, useful elements for measuring circular inputs and outputs that provide an overview of current performance (such as material and water flows, products used, services performed, assets owned and energy used). This tool supports the decision-making process and the incorporation of circularity into business strategies, highlights strengths and areas for improvement, and provides transparency to investors and customers as to circularity projects, for a multi-stakeholder value creation.

In August 2022, the Hera Group, through the company Hasi, submitted its third version to Circulytics and obtained a tailor-made company scorecard containing an assessment of its circularity performance. This assessment showed a C- level on a scale from A to E, areas where Hasi’s performance is already very good and others where improvement is needed. Areas in which Hasi has already achieved optimal performance include:

  • management of water resources by reusing a considerable amount of the water sent into industrial processes;
  • promoting services which, through specific projects, provide for an improvement in customers’ and its own circularity.

The areas where improvement is needed, instead, include the management of its own assets with circularity criteria.

Based on this result, Hasi decided to set up an improvement plan in order to continue the efforts made to enable the company’s transition to a circular economy model.

Circulytics contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 12.2, 12.4, 12.5 and 17.16.

The Hera Group’s commitment to the new plastics economy

Hera is one of the 250 companies worldwide, and the only Italian multiutility company, that in 2018 signed the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, launched by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The Foundation’s initiative is ultimately aimed at tackling the problem of plastic pollution at its source and making the entire supply chain more circular: eliminating disposable products as much as possible, producing and using only recyclable, reusable or compostable packaging and promoting the use of recycled plastic. To this end, the Foundation has created a global movement, involving all players in the supply chain, such as plastic packaging manufacturers and companies that use them to pack their products, large-scale retailers and recycling companies, as well as governments and investors.

The Hera Group has committed to increase by 2025 (compared to 2017):

  • plastics collected in the municipalities served by 30%;
  • plastics sorted and sent to be recycled by the Group’s plants by 50%;
  • plastic recycled by Aliplast by 70%.

To date, the Global Commitment has gathered more than 500 signatures worldwide, including governments and public administrations on five continents, companies operating at various stages of the plastic packaging value chain, institutions including National Geographic, the WWF, the World Economic Forum, the Consumer Goods Forum, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), universities and research organisations, and financial institutions.

In November 2022, the fourth Progress report was published, containing data from 130 companies (96% of those eligible for reporting, depending on the date they became members) and 17 governments/administrations (of the 20 eligible for reporting). The momentum created around the circular economy of plastics was unprecedented and the early progress made by signatories is significant. Despite this, efforts to eliminate the problem of plastic waste pollution at source must progress to a more ambitious level. The data reported on this occasion by the Hera Group referred to 2021.

The Hera Group’s data at the end of 2022, while showing different performances for each target, indicate that the path undertaken is the right one. With regard to the plastics collected in the municipalities served, the Group has reached the target set for 2025 three years in advance, partially thanks to the contribution made by residents who, in recent years, have been engaged and incentivised to improve collection in a rationale oriented towards recycling. With respect to the plastics sorted and sent for recycling in the Group’s plants, there has also been progressive and positive progress compared to the target. However, as of 2023, the performance linked to this indicator will undergo a significant reduction due to the effect of Emilia-Romagna regional law no. 16 of 18 July 2017, which establishes that an amount coming to no less than 30% of municipal waste collected and sorted by type must be managed by an economic operator selected through a competitive procedure in which companies controlled by or connected to the concessionaire (in this case, the Group) cannot participate. In this regulatory context, the Group may only be responsible for managing 70% of the municipal waste collected and sorted by type by the Group itself, which will jeopardise achieving the target within 2025. As for the plastic recycled in 2022, a slight decrease was due to a fall in sales, caused in turn by the unfavourable energy scenario. Nevertheless, the improved performance related to plastics recycling envisaged in the Group’s 2022-2026 Business plan shows that achieving this target will only be possible by continuing efforts in innovation and by leveraging industrial capacity.

The same targets were presented by Hera in the context of the “EU-wide pledging campaign for the uptake of recycled plastics”, the campaign promoted by the European Commission to accelerate the uptake of recycled plastics and reach the European target of ten million tonnes of recycled plastics used for new products by 2025.

Achieving the targets on the plastics supply chain contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 12.2, 12.4, 12.5.

Recycled plastic bags with Aliplast

In November 2019, an experimental circular economy project was launched by Hera and Aliplast, aimed at increasing the reuse of reels made from post-consumer recycled plastic in the production of bags intended for sorted waste collection. The ultimate goal was to “close the circle” of the lifecycle of these products, increasing their recycling and reuse, so as to increase economic sustainability and reduce their environmental impact as much as possible.

During 2022, the industrialisation of this process, involving all areas managed by the Hera Group (including the Triveneto and Marche regions) continued. The main results were:

  • production of 1,958 tonnes of reels (+28% compared to 2021) subdivided respectively;
  • roughly 38 million recycled plastic bags produced.

Going beyond the mere numbers, this project achieved other important positive results, since the quality of the bags clearly improved in that Aliplast itself guarantees the technical requirements. Furthermore, the problem of disputes with third-party suppliers, who might not comply with product specifications, has been eliminated and the service offered to Hera users has improved, resulting in a positive image return for the Group.

The use of recycled plastic bags for waste collection contributes to UN 2030 Agenda goals 9.4, 11.6, 12.2, 12.4 and 12.5.

Innovative Carbon Fibre Recycling Plant

An agreement has been reached for the construction of the first plant in Italy, and among the first in Europe, to use an innovative pyrogasification process to produce recovered carbon fibre. It will be carried out by Herambiente and the project is the result of a collaboration with the Department of Industrial Chemistry of the University of Bologna and Curti Costruzioni Meccaniche.

Currently, carbon fibre waste is almost exclusively destined for landfills or energy recovery. The challenge involved in the project for the plant make it pioneering, because it aims to recover carbon through an innovative pyrogasification process while maintaining the lightness and strength of this fibre, a material that can potentially be recycled countless times.

The advantages of this new technological solution are clear, with a 70% saving on the environmental impact associated with the life cycle compared to traditional methods of carbon fibre treatment and disposal. In addition, it will result in approximately 160 tonnes of recycled carbon fibre with a 90% energy saving compared to virgin fibre production and a reduction in CO2 emissions into the atmosphere coming to approximately 7,000 tonnes per year.

The plant will be built in Imola and will operate through a complex process guaranteeing a completely clean and reusable outgoing product, ready to be rewoven and impregnated for reuse in the sectors from which the waste comes: automotive, aerospace, nautical and wind energy, to name but a few, but more generally from a market that now shows a 9% annual increase in demand for carbon fibre, which today is almost entirely a virgin raw material.

Construction is expected to begin in 2023, and in early 2024 the plant will become operational, and will have a total maximum treatment capacity (on two lines) of 320 tonnes per year, operating for roughly 7,000 hours per year. It is also designed to recover syngas from resins and additives, which will be reused to generate part of the energy needed for the process in order to maximise energy recovery as well.

The carbon fibre recycling plant contributes achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 9.1, 9.2, 9.4, 11.6, 12.2, 12.4 and 12.5, as well as - thanks to the partnership developed - to achieving goal 17.17.

Operation & maintenance service in Granarolo’s sewage treatment plants

The O&M (operation & maintenance) service is part of the distinctive, high-value services offered by Hasi aimed at improving the environmental performance of customer companies. As with the Global Waste Management offer, O&M also takes up Hasi’s philosophy, ranking it as a Circular Engine Company: guiding companies towards the ecological transition by pooling Herambiente’s experience and knowhow in increasing the efficiency of industrial processes.

In 2022, the O&M activities carried out within the framework of the contracts for the operation and maintenance of the purification plants owned by some customers led to highly positive results as regards sustainability and the circular economy, thanks to the control of the purification process, the rationalisation of the chemicals used and the introduction of a number of efficiency improvements.

For Granarolo, of whom three plants are currently under management, located in Cadriano (BO), Usmate (MB) and Pasturago (MI), thanks to management through the O&M service, it has been possible to achieve high performance levels, along with full compliance with emissions limits. Various efficiency enhancement measures are currently being implemented in all three plants, thanks to which it is expected that the purification process will be further improved and significant reductions will be achieved in the consumption of electricity, the use of chemical additives and the production of sludge. Note that following the performance achieved, Hasi has been commissioned by Granarolo to design and construct its new biological purification plant in Usmate (MB).

The operation & maintenance service provided by Hasi for managing sewage treatment plants at Granarolo’s facilities contributed to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 9.2, 11.6, 12.2, 12.4 and 12.5, as well as - thanks to the partnership developed - achieving goal 17.17.

Hera and Eni: partnership to turn cooking oil into biofuel

As part of the transition to a circular economy promoted by the Group, the collection of waste oils has become increasingly visible and important, also leading to significant economic returns. A street collection service for cooking oils started in 2018, using attractive bins specifically designed to collect residual household cooking oil.

The results of this collection feed into a virtuous circular economy project. In fact, under a framework agreement stipulated with Eni, all discarded cooking oil collected by Hera, once processed in affiliated plants, is transported to the Eni bio-refinery in Porto Marghera (VE) where it is transformed into hydrogenated biofuel. Under this agreement, Eni supplies Hera with approximately 600,000 litres/year of this biofuel, which is used to power 35 waste compactors in the areas served. The compactors bear images and logos on their sides highlighting this initiative.

The total number of bins for street collection of discarded vegetable oils in the area served by Hera Spa amounts to more than 800, distributed over 120 municipalities for a served population of roughly 2.4 million inhabitants. In 2022, the results achieved with the collection service came to 1,220 tonnes, with further improvement over previous years. This data refers to the amount collected in the areas served by Hera Spa, Marche Multiservizi and AcegasApsAmga.

In addition to the volume from municipal collections, in 2022 Hera increased its collection of vegetable oils from commercial users in the area. In addition to restaurants and companies operating in the food sector, the project also contracted important groups in the catering sector such as Camst, Cirfood, Elior, Road House and Chef Express. A total of 1,008 catering outlets were involved in the project. The extension of the project made it possible to start producing hydrogenated biofuel at the ENI Bio-Refinery in Porto Marghera from an additional 320 tonnes of vegetable oils.

In total, the oil collected during 2022 amounted to 1,540 tonnes. This generated significant positive environmental impacts, as shown in the table below.

ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS PRODUCED BY THIS PROJECT 2022
Quantity of waste cooking oils collected (tonnes) 1,540
Quantity of hydrogenated biofuel produced (thousand litres) 1,700,000
Greenhouse gas emissions avoided (tonnes of Co2eq) 4,930
Primary energy saved (toe) 1,500

 

In 2022, Hera was certified by Bureau Veritas Italy as regards the AFNOR XP X30-901 standard for its circular economy projects. The French AFNOR standard is now the main international reference for implementing a management system for circular economy projects. More specifically, the waste cooking oil management project was selected and verified in accordance with the requirements of this standard, which includes, among others, a risk/opportunity analysis. This allowed the foundations of the project to be strengthened by assessments of possible criticalities, such as the risk of spills and the maintenance of roadside containers, but also on the important benefits of the initiative, which push for its extension and promotion throughout the area served, as well as the possible actions to be put in place to reduce the former and amplify the latter.

AFNOR certification thus confirms that the reorganisation of the exhausted cooking oil recovery process in the areas served by the Hera Group has taken place in full respect of the circular economy, yielding important environmental and economic benefits.

The partnership between Hera and Eni contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 9.4, 11.6, 12.2, 12.4 and 12.5, as well as - thanks to the partnership developed – to achieving target 17.17.

Important new partnerships signed to “close the circle”

In 2022, 5 new strategic circular economy partnerships were signed with important national bodies, following up on those signed in previous years.

In January 2022, the Hera Group signed two 3-year cooperation agreements with Federdistribuzione, the federation of Distribuzione Moderna, which groups together more than 40 companies in the food and non-food sectors with a total of 17,400 sales points. The first agreement concerns the development of circular economy and environmental sustainability initiatives, including actions related to sustainable mobility and environmental communication, while the second agreement concerns the promotion of energy efficiency initiatives. Federambiente’s role in both cases is to promote the development of projects aimed at member companies.

March 2022 saw the beginning of the Hera Group’s collaboration with the Italian Exhibition Group, to which it provided its support in the ISO 20121 Integrated System certification process relating to the implementation of Sustainable event management systems, a project that included the Rimini and Vicenza exhibition centres and the organisation of Ecomondo. This certification, which states that the activity is designed and carried out with respect for economic, social and environmental factors, was acquired in November on the occasion of the Ecomondo trade fair event.

In April 2022, Aeroporti di Roma also became one of the Hera Group’s strategic circular economy partners, signing of a framework agreement concerning the development of initiatives in favour of sustainability and a circular approach at the Rome Fiumicino and Rome Ciampino airport hubs. The areas identified for interventions, to be developed over a two-year period, range from optimising waste management, to waste water treatment in the airport purification plants and the optimisation of water network management. In the second half of 2022, the first projects to be implemented were identified, concerning the district-based drinking water network and the quality and management of water in the Aeroporti di Roma water plant system, aimed at controlling its quality, maximising its reuse and making its use more efficient.

Between April and September 2022, the Hera Group signed two additional circular economy partnerships with two leading catering companies: Elior and Cirfood. Among the first activities to be launched was the collection and valorisation of used cooking oils produced in their catering outlets, to produce hydrogenated biofuel at the Eni biorefinery in Porto Marghera thanks to the agreement between Hera and Eni. This service was activated in July 2022 at more than 160 Elior refreshment points and in September 2022 at more than 260 Cirfood points located throughout Italy. This project also includes the measurement of organic waste produced at some of the catering outlets that deliver to the S. Agata Bolognese plant, where waste is treated to produce compost and biomethane, in order to determine the contribution and virtuous effects of the concrete combination of the circular economy and sustainable mobility.

Hera’s partnership with the Camst Group was also renewed in 2022, with the expectation of a tacit renewal from year to year, confirming the excellent results achieved in the first three years of this collaboration. One example concerns the collection and valorisation of used cooking oil produced by Camst catering outlets, which has expanded from the initial 62 points located in the provinces of Bologna, Modena and Ravenna, to a total of more than 240 points found throughout the country, rising from 20t of oil collected in 2021 to more than 49t in 2022, thus leading to 157t of CO2 equivalent emissions savings. Over the next few years, plans have been made to extend the scope of circular initiatives to the Facility sector managed by the Camst Group.

In 2022, the collaboration with Aeroporto di Bologna also continued with significant results. The collection of used cooking oils produced by refreshment areas inside the airport began, to be used for producing hydrogenated biofuel.

Once again concerning sustainable mobility, the Hera Group, Aeroporto di Bologna and TPER promoted a campaign called “Together for a Circular City”, to communicate the commitment made by these three companies in the regional capital city to contribute to its decarbonisation. In fact, the organic waste collected at the airport, together with similar waste produced by residents, goes towards the production of biomethane and compost at Hera’s plant in S. Agata Bolognese. This biomethane is also used by TPER to fuel a significant portion of its bus fleet, including some vehicles connecting the airport with the city of Bologna. Therefore, buses and public transport shelters have been equipped with a dedicated communication campaign to make residents aware of this virtuous circuit that contributes to the decarbonisation of transportation in the city.

During 2022, Hera also provided important support to improve the sorted collection of waste produced at the airport, with information and environmental awareness activities directed at employees, sub-concessionaires, the staff of businesses based at the airport and cleaning companies. This allowed the percentage of sorted waste collected to more than double compared to the figures seen in 2021, reaching a peak of over 50% in July and confirming a trend of over 40% in the following months of the year. The goal for 2023 is to consolidate and further improve these results, while also involving passengers more actively.

Lastly, an exhibition of works from the Hera Group’s Scart art project was inaugurated in September 2022. Seven statues from the “Business Wo/men” art project will remain on display until the end of March 2023 in the new airside space dedicated to passenger seating and in the Marconi Business Lounge, with the aim of raising passengers’ awareness on the topic of recycling and reuse and the protection of resources.

The agreement with McDonalds, the first to be signed by Hera and in effect as of January 2020, also continued in 2022. This collaboration concerns an environmental sustainability pilot project to reduce the amount of waste and improve the quality of sorted waste collection in 30 restaurants served by Hera in Emilia-Romagna, with an average of almost 49,000 McDonalds customers per day.

Aimed at developing new paths featuring higher circularity, an ambitious experimental project for regenerating household appliance waste was launched together with Dismeco, which is active in the WEEE recovery sector, with a plant located in Marzabotto, in the province of Bologna. The project is intended to test the feasibility of a new management that would allow the regeneration of washing machines brought as waste to the Group’s ecological stations. Concretely speaking, in this WEEE flow, washing machines are inspected in order to test, on those that in better conditions, repairs that make them suitable for being used again. This project, developed in an agreement with the WEEE Coordination Centre (a consortium that brings together the Collective Systems of producers of electrical and electronic equipment) and Dismeco, calls for a collaboration with associations of installers and repairers, and also aims to develop in-depth studies to establish whether and under what conditions it is actually possible to conceive a marketing of washing machines (and in general of household appliances) regenerated in this way. At the same time, the project will provide a great opportunity for professional training and preparation, and an opportunity to create potential new jobs to support and develop the Bologna area’s mountains and their communities. The project became operational in late 2021, with the activation of the transfers from the first 15 ecological stations in the area, which became 31 during 2022.

The projects described here contribute to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 12.2, 12.4, 12.5, as well as – thanks to the partnerships developed – to achieving goal 17.17.

AFNOR XP X30-901: certification for circular economy projects

Hera has obtained from Bureau Veritas Italia, for its circular economy projects, a certification of compliance with the AFNOR XP X30-901 standard, the first issued to an Italian multi-utility. Continuing along this path within the Group, AcegasApsAmga, ASE and Hera Luce also obtained AFNOR certification in 2022.

The French AFNOR XP X 30-901 standard is now the main international reference for implementing circular economy project management systems. The certification process led to the standardisation of corporate methodologies for their management, by adopting a concrete tool to perform a critical analysis in relation to the areas of action and factors of sustainable development. In particular, it is based on a framework that interweaves the 3 classical factors (environment, economy, society) with the 7 areas for action of the circular economy (Sustainable Procurement, Ecodesign, Industrial Symbiosis, Service Economy, Responsible Consumption, Product Life Extension, Efficient Product and Material Management).

Hera has implemented this management system in its own circular economy projects, and has designed the following projects according to this framework: the “O.V.E.” project, to transform exhausted cooking oils collected in the areas served into biofuel; a project to integrate circularity criteria within the Group’s procurement, and a project to reuse purified wastewater. The AcegasApsAmga group, in turn, brought the following projects to the attention of Bureau Veritas Italia: in the procurement sector, a project that replicates the one used by the parent company for pursuing circularity in procurement; the “Recap” project, which involved recovering plastic coffee capsules in the Trieste area; the third project concerns the water and waste management sector, and called for the reuse of soil resulting from excavations carried out in the Ca’ Nordio (PD) purification plant at the former Roncajette (PD) landfill; for Hera Luce, the project to measure environmental performance through a certified tool allowing the drafting of a material balance; and finally, ASE has developed a project for the recovery of WEEE deriving from thermal power plant upgrading activities.

Bureau Veritas was therefore called upon to analyse them in detail and certified the compliance of the Group’s management system with the AFNOR standard. This was a further important step for the Hera Group, which has been committed for years to initiatives aimed at fostering the transition to an increasingly circular economy.

Obtaining AFNOR XP X 30-901 certification contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 12.2, 12.4, 12.5.

Production and use of compost from Herambiente plants

Herambiente’s compost is an organic biofertiliser obtained by treating separately collected organic waste at six of its own facilities:

  • 1 traditional aerobic composting plant with static heaps at Ostellato (FE), in which only mixed composted soil improver is produced;
  • 4 anaerobic digestion plants with final composting of mixed composted soil improver (S. Agata Bolognese (BO), Voltana (RA), Rimini and Cesena plants);
  • 1 traditional aerobic composting plant with static heaps at Ostellato (Fe), in which green composted soil improver is produced.

To summarise, the process used in all Herambiente plants involves processing and recovering the organic portion of sorted waste from which soil improver and biogas are produced; in the particular case of S. Agata alone, biomethane is produced, which is fed directly into the Snam network for use in motor vehicles.

In 2022, these plants produced approximately 41.4 thousand tonnes of mixed composted soil improver (63.7% destined for extensive agriculture and fruit growing at local farms, 35.7% for the pellet and soil industry and the remaining 0.5% for small local gardeners) and approximately 5.5 thousand tonnes of green composted soil improver (95% destined for the soil industry and the remainder for small local gardeners).

For years, Herambiente has carried out significant on-field trial activities aimed at researching and evaluating the performance of its biofertilisers. The study carried out with the University of Bologna and the Navarra Foundation, located in Ferrara, compares the organic fertilisers produced by the Group, not only in terms of quantitative and qualitative production performance in extensive and specialised crops (fruit and floriculture), but also the impact that organic fertilisers have on the soil’s microbiological composition and the soil/plant ratio. The results confirm production equal to or higher than the one obtained with chemical fertilisation, but with a significant increase in the organic substances present, leading to a qualitative improvement in production as well as significant resilience of the soil to climatic stress (drought) and other physiopathologies.

Producing compost through aerobic digestion, anaerobic digestion and composting processes in Herambiente’s facilities contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 12.2, 12.4, 12.5.

Evaluation and measurement of “circularity” in Hera Luce, Ase, Hse and in new water and gas connections

In 2017, Hera Luce developed a system for measuring the circularity of public lighting systems, considering their lifecycle based on an analysis of material flows (materials used in relation to their origin and end-of-life destination) and economic flows (costs/revenues at the beginning and end of the lifecycle).

This approach to measuring circularity was already aligned with the indications provided by the Ministry of the Environment (MATTM) at the time, and was later confirmed to be consistent with the most recent international methodological approaches, such as the Circulytics tool developed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Hera Luce’s circularity measurement system also anticipated the requirements of the Minimum environmental criteria (MEC) for the public lighting service, approved in March 2018, which introduce an obligation for the bidder to carry out a material analysis.

The measurement system designed acts as a fundamental strategic lever and, along with the awareness-raising process with suppliers, allows the Group to obtain higher scores in tenders and thus gain an advantage over its competitors.

Hera Luce, in order to proceed with measuring its material circularity, has prepared a measurement tool intended both for the actual calculation of material balances and for gathering the input data, providing access to the manufacturers/suppliers of the components used so that they can enter the material data of their products.

This activity made it possible to create a database containing the material data of all products used in the redevelopment projects, and to start raising awareness among suppliers with the aim of directing them towards more sustainable supply chains. The material analysis measurement and reporting system was developed in accordance with the requirements set out in a specification for designing management systems for the implementation of material balances, and the certification process of the same with a third party body was started.

The project was also extended to the companies Hse and Ase, which provide energy efficiency services to public administrations and private entities. During 2021, they continued to refine the evaluation system to measure the circularity of the main technologies used to carry out energy-saving measures, from a lifecycle perspective.

Considering the binding inclusion of a circularity measurement system within the Decreto Rilancio regarding the 110% super-bonus, Ase and Hse’s approach proved to provide a strategic advantage. The measurement system will be gradually extended to the markets for public administrations, industrial customers and condominiums in which Ase and Hse operate. Furthermore, in 2022 the process for the certification of the system was expected, thus further improving the company’s competitiveness, as well as consistency with the targets in Hera’s Business plan and respect for the UN’s SDGs.

In 2020-2021, a circularity assessment model was applied to some simpler and more repetitive assets, in order to optimise them in terms of sustainability by redefining Standards and Procedures. This process consisted of the following steps:

  • Project circularity evaluation system: implementation of calculation tools for evaluating the material circularity of networks and plants throughout their lifecycle, as previously foreseen for public lighting with the introduction of Minimum Environmental Criteria (MEC);
  • Process optimisation: application of the previously codified analysis system to certain types of assets, with the objective of optimising processes in terms of choice of materials, construction technologies and maintenance methods, aimed at minimising the impact on material consumption and maximising the use of secondary raw materials;
  • Elaboration of new standards and procedures: the results of the analyses developed will be transformed into new standards and procedures for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the evaluated infrastructures.

During 2020, the material and economic circularity calculation tool was implemented, which was subsequently applied to the water connection typology (2020) and the polyethylene gas network typology in 2021.

The assessment and measurement of “circularity” in Hera Luce, Ase, Hse and in new water and gas connections contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 12.2, 12.4 and 12.5.

CiboAmico: roughly 120,000 complete meals recovered in Hera cafeterias since the start of the project

Launched in 2009 with the support of Last Minute Market, a social enterprise and accredited spin-off of the University of Bologna active in the fight against waste and in environmental sustainability, CiboAmico is a concrete initiative that encourages an expansion of the circular economy, bringing together different entities in the local area to work towards a shared social responsibility, providing concrete help to those in need. Six company cafeterias are currently involved: Bologna, Granarolo dell'Emilia, Imola, Rimini, Ferrara and Ravenna. Recovered meals are donated to local non-profit organisations that provide hospitality and assist people in need on a daily basis.

In 2022 alone, more than 6,800 complete meals were recovered in favour of six local non-profit organisations that assist about 100 people every day with these recovered meals, corresponding to more than 3.1 tonnes of food with an economic value of over 28,000 euro. This furthermore avoided the production of 3.1 tonnes of waste, corresponding to the capacity of over 7 bins, and the emission of over 12.1 tonnes of CO2 into the environment. Furthermore, the waste of water, energy and land consumption that were necessary to package those meals was avoided.

After fourteen years since the project began, a total of over 125,000 meals have been donated, with an economic value of over 520,000 euro. This has avoided the production of over 55 tonnes of waste (corresponding to over 120 bins) and the emission of over 230 tonnes of CO2.

Many non-profit organisations located in the area are involved, guaranteeing increasingly important results, such as: Fraternità Cristiana Opera di Padre Marella - Pronto Soccorso Sociale in Bologna, Fraternità Cristiana Opera Padre Marella - Città Dei Ragazzi in San Lazzaro di Savena, Associazione Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII in Rimini, Associazione Viale K in Ferrara, Cooperativa Sociale Mano Tesa in Imola and Cooperativa Sociale San Vitale in Ravenna. Numerous partner facilities of the initiative at which the recovered meals are consumed: Pronto Soccorso Sociale in Bologna, Comunità terapeutica “Gemma Nanni Costa” in San Lazzaro di Savena, Capanna di Betlemme in Rimini, Casa della Donne, Casa Mambro and Mensa in via Gaetano Pesci in Ferrara, the Co-Housing facility for the elderly in via del Tiglio in Sesto Imolese and the cafeteria at the headquarters of the Cooperativa San Vitale in Ravenna.

Moreover, at the end of 2017, CiboAmico went beyond company cafeterias to involve a municipal market. This initiative, proposed by HeraLAB Modena, was promoted together with the City of Modena, and carried out with the collaboration of the Market Consortium. While in the cafeterias the objective was to recover unconsumed meals, the collaboration between Hera and the Albinelli retailers, instead, aims to avoid the waste of fresh products which, at the end of the day, may remain in the stalls of the market, food which is still perfectly edible but which, for various reasons, can no longer be sold the following day. Food recoveries from individual shopkeepers take place every Wednesday and Friday when the Albinelli Market is open, and mainly consist in bread and bakery products, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables. For these products, which would otherwise be thrown away, there is a virtuous alternative thanks to the cooperation between Modena City Council, the Hera Group, Last Minute Market, and the Market itself. The retailers, in fact, can choose to donate their unsold goods to the Ceis Foundation, which are then recovered and used to benefit people facing hardship. As of 2020, once again in agreement with the City of Modena, food surpluses have also been recovered at Agricola Prima Natura in Via Rainusso. This made it possible to extend the cooperation network to Caritas Diocesana di Modena, which carries out recoveries through its own local structures and parishes. In 2022, thanks to 15 participating retailers, a total of over 3,900 kg of products were collected and reused in Modena.

In 2022, the City of Imola’s initiative “Un s'bota veja gnet – Nothing gets thrown away” was launched. This initiative is promoted by Hera and coordinated by Last Minute Market, and is aimed at recovering surplus food in the city and preventing food waste. During the year, 13,800 kg of food products were recovered, including over 1,000 kg of ready-to-eat meals, and given to local organisations that take care of people facing hardship. The following organisations have joined this initiative and regularly donate surplus foodstuffs: Interspar Imola, Mensa Hera di Imola, Ecu Imola, and CLAI with the Imola Pedagna and Imola Centro local butcher’s shops. Recovery is also underway from: Crai in Sesto Imolese, TeaPack, Pasticceria Dulcis café, Naturasì, and the Imola racetrack.

The three local non-profit organisations currently involved are the Coop. Soc. Mano Tesa, the No Sprechi Odv Association, and the Italian Red Cross - Imola Committee, which distribute surplus food both at their facilities and to families facing hardship, disabled persons and the elderly.

Thanks to this initiative, the Municipality of Imola won the “Living with Zero Waste 2022” award promoted by Last Minute Market’s Zero Waste campaign, in the public administrations category. This award goes to innovative actions and projects that are potentially replicable in other contexts and are focused on waste reduction, efficient use of resources, and decoupling economic and social development from resource consumption and environmental degradation.

Waste prevention initiatives such as CiboAmico contribute to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 12.2, 12.4, 12.5, as well as – thanks to partnerships with non-profit organisations – to achieving goal 17.17.

FarmacoAmico: over 739,000 packages of non-expired medicines recovered since the start of the project

FarmacoAmico is a project promoted by Hera to collect non-expired medicines and create a network of solidarity for reuse in the local area. Intact medicine, still valid for at least six months and in an adequate state of conservation, is reused by non-profit organisations operating in local or decentralised cooperation projects. The aim is to prevent waste production by spreading good practices in waste reduction and supporting organisations that assist the weaker members of the community.

Launched in 2013, in Bologna, FarmacoAmico is implemented in cooperation with Last Minute Market and now involves 32 municipalities in Emilia-Romagna, a region with approximately 1.6 million inhabitants (equivalent to 67% of the population to whom waste management services are provided).

In 2022, almost 51,000 packages of medicine, having a total value of over 729,000 euro, were sent for reuse. Centralised management of the collection, selection and distribution of this medicine made it possible to overcome the difficulties that arose in some local areas participating in the initiative, partially due to the difficulties caused by the health emergency.

In 2022, this project involved a total of 160 pharmacies and 37 non-profit organisations, some operating in Italy and others abroad, as well as various partners, institutions, trade associations and corporate bodies, amounting to a total of 52 parties.

Since the start of the project, more than 739,000 packages of medicine with a total economic value coming to over 5.4 million euro have been collected and sent for reuse, which partially and potentially corresponds to lower costs for the National Health System.

Waste prevention initiatives such as FarmacoAmico contribute to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 12.2, 12.4, 12.5, as well as – thanks to the involvement of residents and municipalities – to achieving goal 17.17.

The success of Cambia il Finale continues: 840 tonnes of bulky waste collected in 2022

The Cambia il Finale (Change the Ending) project, now in its ninth year, makes it possible to collect all objects in good condition that would otherwise be disposed of as bulky and allow them to be reused, thanks to a network of non-profit organisations distributed over the area served, capable of giving new life to goods donated by residents. The project is linked to a specific Memorandum of Understanding between Atersir and Hera on the management of bulky waste, and is developed in cooperation with Last Minute Market. Goods can be donated by residents to a circuit of non-profit organisations in Emilia-Romagna that collect more or less bulky goods at their own premises or at home, allocating them to flea markets, using them in their own premises or donating them to people in need. All the Hera Group’s communication tools promote the collection of goods carried out by non-profit organisations, in particular its call centre operators, who offer users the possibility of donating bulky items in good condition that they wish to dispose of.

This initiative promotes good habits related to reuse and generates positive social benefits thanks to the activities carried out by the non-profit organisations involved, in line with the Hera Group’s principles of social responsibility and environmental protection. Moreover, it responds to current developments in environmental legislation, which aims at management models based on the concepts of prevention and reuse.

Fifteen non-profit organisations were partners in the project at the end of 2022, distributed throughout the Emilia-Romagna region served by Hera, guaranteeing coverage of all main cities. During 2022, the organisations received more than 8,950 phone calls from residents willing to donate their bulky goods and carried out more than 5,700 collections, totalling over 320,000 items and over 840 tonnes collected. The majority of the goods donated were indeed reused, with an average percentage close to 70%. From January to December 2022, more than 587 tonnes of bulky waste were thus avoided by this project.

Since the start of the project, more than 4.8 thousand tonnes of waste have been avoided, bringing great savings for the environment and lower waste collection costs.

Moreover, as part of the “Cambia il finale” project, six “Reuse Areas” have been installed in the municipalities of Cesena, Ferrara, Modena, Ravenna and Rimini. These are actual boxes inside Hera’s Collection Centres, where residents can bring furniture and small objects in good condition, which are then collected and sent for reuse by accredited non-profit organisations. In 2022, 863 donations were made by residents, totalling 4,604 items and corresponding to 10,913 kg of goods.

Waste prevention initiatives such as Cambia il finale contribute to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 12.2, 12.4, 12.5, as well as – thanks to citizen collaboration and partnerships with non-profit organisations – to achieving goal 17.17.

SCART®: the beautiful and useful side of waste

SCART® is the Hera Group’s art and communication project that has been developing a combination of art and waste for twenty-five years. It is a corporate waste art project, created within one of Herambiente’s industrial waste treatment and disposal plants. Today, SCART® is a trademark registered throughout the European Community, designed to breathe new life into some of those many industrial waste products that are disposed of as waste on a daily basis and, thanks to the creativity of the artists collaborating in the project, are transformed into unique, exclusive pieces of art in full respect of the circular economy. The aim is to encourage environmentally responsible behaviour, offering new stimuli to create artistic, design, fashion and performance objects using only and exclusively waste as a raw material. This has led to the creation of furniture, games, musical instruments, clothes, paintings, statues, as well as sets for shows and stage costumes. SCART® is an invitation to think about new intelligent, creative and above all sustainable lifestyles.

The numerous national and international initiatives include, for example, important conventions with the Fine Arts Academies in Florence, Bologna and Ravenna, Brera Milan, the Free Academy of Fine Arts of Rimini, and the Academy of Design of San Marino. A collaboration with the young people at the Sanpatrignano Rehabilitation Community is also important in terms of social profile. The Scart Project, during 2022, involved over 100 students in seminars and workshops held at the SCART® laboratories located within the Herambiente plant complex in Santa Croce sull'Arno and Pisa. These artistic and educational initiatives focus on experimenting with the artistic use of industrial waste and involve not only enrolled students but also many artists specialised in trash art.

Since 2012, the SCART® project has been the exclusive partner for the production of costumes and stage components for Andrea Bocelli’s concert at the Teatro del Silenzio in Lajatico (PI), the small Tuscan town where this great tenor was born. Every year, roughly 250 stage costumes are made using only industrially produced waste.

Over the years, SCART® has also participated in numerous national – Ravenna, Imola, Modena, Pisa, Udine, Bologna, Padua, Trieste, Rimini, Florence and Rome, only to name a few – and international (Berlin 2016 and Hong Kong 2021, Doha in Qatar in 2022) exhibitions.

In 2020/2021 and 2022 the project will appear in Milan as a protagonist in “RoGUILTLESSPLASTIC”, an event conceived by design guru Rossana Orlandi for Milano Design Week. In 2022, a bench was created using 40 car mufflers to furnish the outdoor area of the Via Bandello gardens, adjacent to the Galleria Orlandi. This Hera Group installation also invites users of this furnishing component to reflect more broadly on the importance of pursuing a form of economic and industrial development that is also sustainable.

The documentary “The Cycle of Beauty” continued to be broadcast on Sky Arte in 2022, providing a closer look at this project by the Hera Group, that talks about the environment in the language of art.

One of the more significant events for the Scart Project in 2022 was unquestionably the participation in creating sets and costumes for the programme “Ci vuole un Fiore” hosted by Francesco Gabbani and Francesca Fialdini broadcast on RAI1 in prime time on 8 April 2022.

Another highly impactful moment came from the collaboration with RAI for the set design of Superstudio Maxi in Milan, for the presentation of the RAI’s 2022/2023 programme schedule. All RAI top management, as well as TV presenters from all main newspapers and entertainment publications, were able to admire over 30 Scart works, including statues and paintings dedicated to Italian cinema, providing a considerable return in terms of image and communication.

This is yet another emotion offered by Scart, which after many years of searching for beauty, starting from poor, discarded and no longer used materials, continues to amaze, communicate and raise awareness.

The SCART® project contributes to UN 2030 Agenda goals 12.2, 12.4, 12.5 and 12.8.


All the quality of tap water in one report: In good water

In 2022 Hera published the fourteenth edition of its report In buone acque (In Good Water), dedicated to tap water and completely revised in its graphic form. This report is still the first and only example of a specific report on tap water in Italy and its environmental and economic benefits. The report contains, region by region, analysis data on 29 parameters and non-standard parameters, such as emerging contaminants and asbestos fibres.

The report shows that drinking tap water is an environmentally sustainable choice and is also good for your wallet. In fact, tap water avoids the production, transport and disposal of 305 million plastic bottles and saves 480 euro per year for a family of three.

For the full contents of the report: www.gruppohera.it/report

Hera, Iren, Smat and A2A together to improve the integrated water service

On 8 April 2014, a partnership agreement for applied research was signed between Hera, Iren and Smat, aimed at developing shared research, innovation and training projects in sectors and activities related to the integrated water service. The partnership agreement for applied research between Hera, Iren and Smat, which was renewed in 2022 and identified new project areas of interest, under development between 2022 and 2023, briefly outlined below.

Coordinated by A2A, an in-depth project on the biological removal of phosphorous in the oxidative phase was launched, with the Marche Polytechnic University acting as a scientific partner. In this work group, a deeper knowledge of the biological removal process in wastewater purification plants is being gained, evaluating its managerial, plant engineering and economic aspects, for subsequent possible scale-up assessments in plants managed by the utilities participating in the Agreement.

Hera was entrusted with coordinating the project for optimising plans for leakage searches and network replacements, in which practices and tools are shared for optimising plans for leakage searches and network replacements. In particular, the focus goes to methods and technologies for pre-localisation and localisation of leaks and the identification of algorithms for the selection and prioritisation of critical sections to support programming leakage search plans and network replacement plans.

The third project, led by Iren, deals with the reuse of wastewater, using as a basis for the discussion current regulatory developments, the treatments possibly required by the New European Regulation on Reuse and the agreements with the stakeholders concerned (drainage consortia, regions), to formalise indirect reuse.

Smat has been charged with the last project, concerning reporting greenhouse gas emissions, comparing different calculation methods and the underlying assumptions, to finalise a guideline document to support the strategic orientations of the Utilities concerned.

All projects contribute to comparing innovative technologies supporting strategic processes for the utilities involved, providing a useful basis for current or longer-term planning and investment choices.

The partnership described above between Hera, Iren, A2A and Smat contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 6.3, 9.1, 9.4 and 17.17.

Convention with the University of Bologna for the aqueduct

In June 2022, a consultancy contract was signed with the Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering of the University of Bologna (Unibo), with the aim of analysing the environmental impacts related to the water supply chain with the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. Through this collaboration with Unibo, the positive environmental contributions coming from the Group’s various project initiatives will be measured, with efficiency and innovation as the primary targets, and which, based on the LCA analysis results, may be enhanced and extended to other Group companies. Indeed, the choice of materials with which to carry out renovations has strategic importance, and an awareness of the mechanical and environmental performance of different materials is increasingly becoming a lever to orient choices in planning.

In particular, the project initiatives falling under this collaboration that have already been launched include:

  • an analysis for the selection of different materials in the aqueduct used for the construction, maintenance and renewal of pipelines. The LCA analysis will identify which materials have the greatest impact on the environment, considering their entire life cycle, from production to operation and maintenance.
  • a technological innovation project involving the installation of ultrasound platforms to prevent algae in the lagoon basins of the Pontelagoscuro plant. This technology, by inhibiting chlorophyll photosynthesis, makes it possible to reduce the subsequent use of chemical additives to remove algae, which, especially with the increase in temperature seen in recent years, tend to form in increasing quantities. This experimentation, the first of its kind in Italy, is believed to have positive environmental effects precisely because it does not intervene following the appearance of algae with chemical treatments, but prevents their onset. At the same time, rising temperatures lead to algae in several basins, even outside the areas served by the Group. The results of the Pontelagoscuro experiment and the analysis of possible reductions in energy and chemical consumption may therefore represent a case of success that can be applied to other basins.
  • installation of smart water metering, a project under development within the Group, aimed not only at acquiring consumption data remotely but also at providing remote users with comparative information on their daily consumption trends and alerts relating, for example, to leakage in the internal system. The rapidity of these alerts and the availability of real consumption data will lead to savings in water resources, which the collaboration with Unibo will quantify. Metering through smart meters could lead to offers of value-added services, which from a LCA perspective can lead to benefits on consumed or lost volumes of water resources.

The partnership described above between Hera and Unibo contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 6.3, 9.1, 9.4 and 17.17.

The Rimini seawater protection plan continues

The Rimini seawater protection plan was created in 2013 to eliminate bans on bathing following intense rainfall, by implementing structural measures on the sewage-purification system of the City of Rimini. Intense rainfall, in fact, causes the flow rate manageable by the sewage system to be exceeded, making an emergency discharge of untreated water into the environment necessary. The gradual implementation of the measures set out in the Plan will lead to a gradual reduction of critical elements and up to a 90% reduction of the polluting impact, measured in terms of COD not discharged into the environment, compared to the initial state of the system.

From the very beginning of the Plan, mathematical modelling of the sewage and purification system has played an essential role in identifying possible synergies between the interventions and systemically optimising works and management criteria. The modelling activities, in fact, since they can rely on an ever-increasing amount of data and the management feedback of the works as they were built, were able to significantly change the system structure as initially planned.

The evolution of the Plan, from its implementation start-up to the present, has made it possible to pursue not only the environmental protection of the coastline as initially foreseen, but also the hydraulic protection of urban areas in the municipality of Rimini that were subject to flooding. More specifically, in 2014, the Plan included interventions referred to as “Mavone spillway”, “Via Santa Chiara pumping station”, “Ausa dorsal sewerage collector” (the latter financed with 8.5 million euro as part of the public investments related to hydrogeological instability in the initiative known as “Italia Sicura”), as well as the modification of rainwater management in the plant system serving the Fossa Ausa. Subsequently, in 2019 and 2020, the plant engineering systems serving the Colonnella and Rodella Ditches were further optimised, taking advantage of the possible synergies with the sewerage system, which reduced the storage volumes of the tanks, thus also reducing both the investment required and the implementation timeframe, while at the same time strengthening the hydraulic control of the area.

In particular, the construction of the Dorsale Sud was completed in 2022, which, with the implementation of the plant and the laying of new collectors, allows for a considerable improvement in the capacity to collect wastewater from southern Rimini to the purification plant. The completion of this intervention, in addition to improving the overall efficiency of an important sewage infrastructure of the city, introduces a further environmental improvement, essentially due to the increase in the volume of waste water that, in the event of rainfall, can be sent to purification, proportionally reducing the number of activations of the emergency drains of the Ausa and Colonnella I Ditches.

The Plan essentially consists of the ten measures originally planned, to which additional measures due to optimisations introduced have been added, making a total of 14 measures.

The ongoing optimisation of the Plan, with the design improvements made and the indispensable permitting steps required, has meant that achieving the environmental objectives initially planned for 2020 has been postponed to 2026. Note that by that year, the works necessary to reduce the city’s hydraulic risk will also be completed. The postponement in the Plan’s implementation schedule is strictly related to a substantial improvement in its impact on the city, which, as mentioned above, will benefit from a significant improvement in both hydraulic and environmental aspects compared not only to the pre-operational state of the sewage-depuration system, but especially compared to the one expected at the outset of the Plan.

The state of progress of the interventions does not reveal any major criticalities and allows the quality objectives fixed to be achieved. At the end of 2022, ten interventions had been completed and all interventions that had not yet been completed were being implemented or planned.

The situation of the 14 measures is as follows:

INTERVENTION STATUS
AT 31 DECEMBER 2022
PLANNED/ACTUAL YEAR OF COMPLETION MOTIVATIONS/BENEFITS
1. Doubling of the Santa Giustina purification plant Concluded 2016 Improving the purification process
2. Conversion of the Rimini Marecchiese purification plant into a storage tank Concluded 2018 Improving the purification process
3. Construction of the northern backbone to connect the Bellaria purification plant to the S. Giustina purification plant Concluded 2016 Improving the purification process
4. Completion of sewer network separation in northern Rimini In progress 2nd section of which 4 lots out of a total of 7 have been completed.
(1st instalment completed in 2018)
2024 Conversion to white water discharge of five sea outlets (three of which have already been implemented in the 1st section)

5. Construction of the southern backbone

Concluded 2022 Reducing the number of openings of the Ausa and Colonnella I sea outlets
6. Completion of the separation in the Roncasso and Pradella basins Network separation completed.
Water-supply plant serving Pradella reservoir planned
2024 Conversion of two sea outlets to white water discharge
7. Construction of submarine pipeline and hydro-swelling plant for Ausa basin and resevoirs Concluded 2020 Reducing the number of openings of the Ausa sea outlets
8. Construction of hospital lamination tank Concluded 2016 Reducing the number of openings of sea outlets Colonnella I
9. Construction of connection pipeline between Fossa Colonnella I and Fossa Colonnella II; Colonnella II tank and Rodella tank and submarine discharge pipeline In progress 2026 Reduction in the number of openings of the sea outlets Colonnella I, Colonnella II and Rodella
10. Sewerage rehabilitation island Concluded 2014 Optimisation of the sewerage system
11. Ausa beach section Concluded 2016 Improving the usability of the area and environmental conditions
12. Ausa backbone sewer In progress 2024 Hydraulic risk reduction
13. Mavone spillway Concluded 2018 Hydraulic risk reduction
14. Drainage of Via Santa Chiara Concluded 2020 Hydraulic risk reduction

The completion of nine interventions has resulted in significant environmental benefits, reducing the quantities of organic substances (COD/BOD) discharged into the sea during intense meteorological events. The intervention concluded in 2020 led to a considerable reduction in the pollutant load discharged near the shore, with benefits for the water quality of the coastline. This means that the bathing bans that occur if discharges are opened along a wide strip of the city’s coastline, including both areas where the separation of the sewerage networks has been completed and the stretch of sea adjacent to Fossa Ausa, will no longer apply. From this point of view, 6,500 metres of beach, corresponding to almost 60% of the city’s coastline, have been “freed” from bathing bans since 2017.

Moreover, as a further proof of the Plan’s strong links with the City of Rimini, note that a significant part of the planned works are being integrated with the urban redevelopment project promoted by the Municipality called Parco del Mare (Sea Park), so as to pursue synergies that can provide an overall improvement of the urban structure.

The Rimini seawater protection plan was included among the best practices in the SDG Industry Matrix report published by Global Compact and KPMG in 2017, which reports on business opportunities linked to the goals of the UN's 2030 Agenda.

The RSPP, through its interventions to improve the water-sewerage system, reduce marine pollution, upgrade infrastructures and involve municipalities and residents in the project, contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 6.2, 6.3, 6.b, 9.1, 9.4 and 14.1.


More than 24,000 trees planted by 2024

The Hera Group has carried out, and continues to carry out tree planting projects in various areas of the regions in which it operates, confirming its commitment to protecting biodiversity and air quality. Since 2012, 15,077 trees have been donated to areas in Emilia-Romagna, Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, totalling over 1,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide absorbed each year, and a further 4,293 trees will be planted in the coming years through numerous initiatives involving Hera Group employees and customers and the public served. The plantings were the result of reward mechanisms associated with specific virtuous behaviour, such as delivering sorted waste to ecological stations or requesting electronic bills instead of paper bills.

For example, with the “ECO Trees” initiative, the Hera Group has joined the Emilia-Romagna Region’s project “Planting roots for the future” aimed at planting 4.5 million trees (one per inhabitant of the region). In particular, Hera aims to reach the target of 10,000 trees planted by 2024 by collaborating with municipalities and other entities participating in the project by making available resources, skills and areas of the region, and thanks to an economic commitment coming to 250,000 euro. In this context, the collaboration of residents is fundamental because their choices in efficient energy consumption and sustainable mobility are what supports the initiative. In fact, Hera Comm offers its customers a wide range of services and products that allow them to reduce consumption and the related environmental impact, and by opting for these solutions they contribute to implementing the project: every four products purchased, including LED light bulb kits or smart thermostats, for example, corresponds to planting and care of one tree. The same applies to two boilers, two air conditioners or one boiler and one air conditioner, or two means of sustainable mobility such as scooters or electric bicycles. By the end of 2022, 5,707 trees had been planted in the Bologna, Modena, Ferrara, Forlì-Cesena, Ravenna and Rimini areas.

In 2022, the “More trees in the city” initiative also continued, in collaboration with municipal administrations, to launch an urban forestation project promoting an increased use of ecological stations by residents: one tree is donated for every 50 new households that deliver their waste to the drop-off points. This initiative encourages residents to use the drop-off points and thus to recycle, and is beneficial for the environment and urban cleanliness since it helps reduce waste dumping, and it offers an economic advantage to households through a discount on the TARI (local waste tax) that municipalities grant for each kilogram of waste deposited. Moreover, thanks to this project, the city’s parks can once again be filled with greenery, with benefits for biodiversity and improved air quality. From the start of the project to 2022, 370 new trees have been planted in Modena, Sassuolo and Rimini.

The project entitled “The Air Factory”, active in the Triveneto area, it aimed at valorisation, sustainability and respect for the environment and the area in which Ascotrade operates, by planting 5,000 trees in collaboration with Azzero CO2. One of the special features of this project is the exclusive use of indigenous species and, where possible, pioneer plants, which are important for regenerating degraded soils and favouring the colonisation of other species, fundamental for creating ecological corridors and the establishment of birdlife.

The associations that the Hera Group supports through Hera Solidale include Treedom, promoter of “Lets Green Madagascar”. The project aims to counteract the practice of slash and burn, which involves burning entire areas of forest and old farmland, by offering the alternative of an integrated agroforestry system capable of protecting biodiversity and at the same time giving local communities the possibility to benefit from several harvests over the course of the seasons. The donation will be used to build a modern nursery that will supply the community with good quality plants, to train the local community in agroforestry techniques and activities, and to plant trees with a mix of forest and fruit species. To date, the first target of 3,500 trees has been reached, which will allow roughly 9,257 tonnes of carbon dioxide to be absorbed in 10 years.

Lastly, the now-completed activities “Operation More Trees” in Padua and “Give a Tree” in Emilia-Romagna, which included the active involvement of residents and customers, allowed 4,000 trees to be planted.

Further details of the tree-planting initiatives are available at alberi.gruppohera.it/hera-per- patrimonio-naturale-e-la-biodiversita.

The reported projects contribute to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 7.3, 11.3, 11.2, 11.6, 12.2, 12.4, 12.5 and 12.8, as well as – thanks to the involvement of residents, municipalities and institutions – to achieving goal 17.17.

Environmental biomonitoring with bees

The “Capiamo” project uses bees as bio-indicators of environmental quality near industrial facilities. These insects are particularly sensitive to environmental changes caused by pollutants, and are therefore able to signal the onset of any imbalances in biodiversity, the ecosystem and human health in general at an early stage, thus enabling corrective actions to be rapidly planned.

Bees are particularly well-suited for biomonitoring. They are, in fact, social insects that live in large colonies and are easy to breed. In addition, their hairy bodies and regular foraging activity (collecting nectar and pollen) allow individual colonies to take about 10,000 samples per day from the air, water and soil with which they come into contact, bearing in mind that during its daily activity a single bee normally moves over an area of 7 km2. Substances present in the environment thus accumulate within the hive, on the bees and their products (honey, propolis, wax, pollen and royal jelly), making it easy to recover highly representative samples for analysis. Bees, as bio-indicators, offers a lot of useful information in both the short and long term: honey, for example, can be used to assess pollution in the short term, since it is the first product in which contaminants can accumulate. Wax, on the other hand, can be used to assess pollution levels in the long term, since due to its lipidic nature it can absorb and retain non-volatile, lipophilic and persistent contaminants.

In spring 2020, three beehives were installed at the facilities of the waste-to-energy plant in Pozzilli, in order to monitor the area consisting of the eastern part of the Venafro Plain, between the Meta and Matese mountains, where, in addition to the waste-to-energy plant, chemical industries, private health companies, abandoned construction sites and small inhabited agricultural centres are found. This initiative includes two sampling and analysis campaigns per year concerning the bee population, the three hives and their products, as well as medical-veterinary checks to verify their health and productivity, to limit swarming, and to position and remove the honeycombs. Samples collected from the hives (bees, honey and wax) are subjected to chemical analyses at accredited laboratories using certified methods. The information obtained makes it possible to know and quantify the possible effects of the impact of human activities on the environment.

The results obtained show an overall good state of environmental quality. Investigations on honey samples showed an overall absence of dioxins, PCBs and pesticides, while as far as anions (chlorides, sulphates and nitrates) are concerned, their presence is in line with the average values for Italian honey. Analyses on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), whose main source is the combustion of fossil fuels, waste incineration, energy production or asphalt and chemical products, show an environmental condition to which several emission sources contribute, such as traffic, industry, and biomass household heating, typical of the anthropisation of this area, without a significant incidence from the waste-to-energy plant. The metals present are also due to the presence of abandoned construction sites, industry and infrastructure.

In 2021-2022, the project was also extended to the composting plant with biomethane production in S. Agata Bolognese (Bo). In spring 2021, three beehives were installed in the plant’s facilities, with the aim of monitoring a larger and more complex area, located in the Bolognese plain bordering with the province of Modena, where large and small scale industrial and agricultural activities are located. This project was carried out in the same way as in Pozzilli: two sampling and analysis campaigns were carried out on the bee population and their products (honey and wax), in addition to medical-veterinary checks on their health and productivity. The samples collected from the hives were then subjected to chemical analyses. The results obtained confirm a state of environmental quality: the honey produced is free of heavy metals such as cadmium and lead, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and pesticides, and its pollen profile is typical of the lower Emilian Apennines.

In 2022, this project was also launched at the Serravalle Pistoiese landfill. The results will be available during 2023.

This biomonitoring project contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 11.6 and 12.4.

Responsible projects and services accordion 3

Local Areas (and Businesses) – Enabling resilience and innovation


Analysing the carbon footprint of IT and telecommunications service providers

As part of the process undertaken by the Hera Group to analyse and report on the impacts of its digitalisation activities according to the Corporate digital responsibility framework, an involvement of the main suppliers has been continued in 2022 in order to monitor and describe in the Sustainability Report how the digital innovation projects and activities carried out for Hera respond to the four dimensions of digital responsibility (in particular the environmental one) and what their impacts are.

Five main suppliers of the Information Systems Department and Acantho (the Group's digital company) were involved in order to quantify the main environmental impacts resulting from the services provided and directly related to Hera's activities (cloud software management, telephone services, work on the telecommunications network).

In particular, it was requested to quantify - for the portion attributable to the activities and services provided for the Hera Group - electricity consumption, renewable electricity consumption, greenhouse gas emissions related to electricity consumption, total greenhouse gas emissions, offset greenhouse gas emissions, and fuel consumption (the latter indicator only for the supplier of work on the telecommunications network). From the data collected, the greenhouse gas emissions of the five suppliers attributable to the activities and services provided for the Group in 2022 can be estimated at approximately 546 tonnes of CO2 equivalent; this value is affected by the total electricity consumption profile of the five suppliers, 60% of which is electricity produced from renewable sources (two of the five suppliers have declared that they only buy electricity from renewable sources). Only one supplier offsets its CO2 emissions, and the offset is for its total inventory. Only one supplier offsets its CO2 emissions, and the offset is for its total inventory.

In this way, Hera aims to extend to its main suppliers of digital services the attention to the climate impacts resulting from their activities, in order to make them aware of the responsible management of these impacts.

Gridspertise and Hera for the smart grid of the future

Hera and Gridspertise, an Enel Group company dedicated to the digital transformation of electricity grids, have signed a collaboration agreement aimed at developing the smart grids of the future.

This agreement concerns the trial of an integrated system for collecting and measuring data from the Hera Group’s gas devices and Gridspertise’s smart meters for electricity grids. The multi-service gas-electricity integration tests will be carried out in Italy on the network managed by Inrete Distribuzione Energia, the Hera Group’s distribution company.

With this activity, the two companies will combine their expertise and achieve technical synergies in the area of network digitisation. In particular, Hera will be able to count on its experience in the field of smart gas meters, in which it patented the advanced NexMeter, the first of its kind internationally in terms of technology and safety functions adopted, also in terms of reducing gas dispersion into the atmosphere. Gridspertise will provide its most innovative solutions for an integrated management of metering data to help develop new smart and sustainable grids, to accelerate the digital transformation of electricity infrastructures. In recent months, Gridspertise has signed agreements with the Hera Group for supplying 435 thousand smart meters and concentrators, as well as an innovative remote management system that will be used in the trial. At the same time, Hera has made plans to install 300 thousand NexMeters by 2026, 180 thousand of which are already operational.

The result is a package of network management solutions whose key element consists in facilitating the energy transition. Based on the results of the trial, the two companies will evaluate joint participation in future tenders, which will also be held outside Italy, in which hardware and software solutions for gas and electricity metering will be sold. This collaboration may also extend, at a later stage, to solutions concerning the integrated water cycle, in terms of both metering and smart water grids.

The results of this collaboration may also interest multi-utility companies abroad, thus extending the outstanding technology conceived and developed in our country to international markets.

Predictive models for network maintenance

Since 2018, Hera has undertaken a research project with the University of Bologna to investigate the causes of ruptures in water networks. This study, carried out on a timeline of six years of ruptures, showed that pipeline ruptures must be analysed considering different variables, and that an effective forecasting model can only be built by integrating and weighting the incidence of:

  • characteristics within to the water infrastructure, such as material, diameter and age of the pipeline;
  • external factors such as soil type, ambient temperature and some external stresses including road traffic.

After some initial applications of models developed by external providers, Hera worked with the University of Bologna to combine these elements with artificial intelligence algorithms, thus arriving in 2022 at its own predictive algorithm capable of foreseeing the risk class for pipeline failure. This algorithm makes it possible to identify which sections are most likely to break down during the following year, thus becoming a decision-support tool for better targeting network renewal and active leakage searches.

In 2022, the algorithm was applied to the Bologna and Modena networks, but as early as 2023 it will be extended to Hera Spa’s entire aqueduct, consolidating the model and envisaging its industrialisation in the Group’s system architectures.

Predictive maintenance of the aqueduct is a tool that complements other actions to reduce leakage volumes, with which the Group is consolidating its operational strategy to reduce leakage, such as a district-based network and active research with acoustic and experimental methods.

The Ferrara training centre for employees and suppliers

In 2022, the Ferrara Training Centre was inaugurated, a structure conceived to promote the integration of physical and virtual learning environments, designing customised training processes according to different learning objectives and promoting the development of on-line and off-line learning communities.

This centre was used as part of the Employability project, initiated in cooperation with the personnel selection company Manpower. Its objective is to acquire talented people (about 300 new hires) throughout the country, particularly those with a technical and operational profile. This is an important project on employability that will provide the Hera Group with additional key resources to meet the challenges of the energy transition. The project will provide 80 hours of training per capita for operational profiles and 240 hours per capita for technical profiles.

Furthermore, in a collaboration with Emerson, an industrial partner operating in gas distribution, training courses will be developed with certification of the skills acquired, prolonging the Group’s commitment in the area of employability and also supporting allied companies in their search for qualified resources, with particular reference to technical-operational profiles.

“Il Rifiutologo”, the app for sorting waste (and more) gets smarter

"Il Rifiutologo” (The Wasteologist) is a free app with many useful features available online both on Hera’s website and on App stores for smartphones and tablets. From its launch in 2011 to 31 December 2022, it has almost 960 thousand downloads on Android and iOS operating systems. The municipalities in which Rifiutologo was most used were Bologna, with over 754 thousand total sessions and 96 thousand individual active users, and Ravenna, with 432 thousand sessions and 33 thousand users, followed by Padua with 337 thousand sessions and Modena with 29 thousand users.

Using the Waste Search function, users can check in real time where to take their waste and the door-to-door collections scheduled for their address, and even set a reminder alert for the day and time of each collection. The Waste Search is confirmed as the most used function, with over 2.7 million searches carried out in the last year.

Using geolocalisation, Il Rifiutologo also shows the nearest drop-off point, with complete information on the waste types accepted, opening hours and any discounts offered by the municipality. It also provides additional information on Points of Interest for residents, i.e. special sorted waste collection, mobile collection points, material distribution points and underground drop-off points.

The Environmental Reports function makes it possible for residents to report problems related to, for example, abundant waste or damaged containers, sending photos in real time to Hera technicians. The App later informs the user when the problem has been solved, including through personalised push notifications. In 2022, reports concerning the emptying of bins, street cleaning and abandoned waste reached approximately 195,000, up 23% compared to the previous year.

The barcode scanner, another popular feature of Il Rifiutologo, allows materials to be recognised by means of product barcodes, indicating how to correctly dispose of each package, even if it is made up of several types of materials; at 31 December 2022, the archive contained 1,740,000 barcodes of the most widely used products. If a code is not recognised, or if a product is missing, residents can report this via the specific function, so that it can be added to the system. In 2022, partially thanks to the reports sent by residents, 50,000 codes were added to the barcode database, while the number of requests made by scanning the barcode came to about 527,000. At present, the database covers almost the entire circulation in Italy.

Il Rifiutologo can also communicate with Alexa, the artificial intelligence created by Amazon to give voice to the smart devices we all own. Anyone who opens the Alexa app can add the Rifiutologo skill, thus ensuring the availability of a friendly voice from whom to ask for fundamental information on the collection service provided by the Hera Group in their municipality, such as: checking door-to-door calendars and setting voice memos to remind them of the collection days scheduled in the calendar, the dove lo butto (where can I throw it out) function, with which the skill can be asked how to dispose of waste in the areas served by Hera, and lastly information on drop-off points and how to have bulky items collected at home.

In 2022, a highly useful new feature was introduced: it is now possible to book a free home collection of bulky waste directly from the app. To book a pick-up at one’s own address, simply register and with a few clicks the items to be collected can be selected. The app will directly provide the date and time for the pick-up. In municipalities where the service is active, it is also possible to request home collection of prunings via the app. As of 31 December 2022, there were already more than 10,000 collection bookings requested via the Il Rifiutologo app.

The information contained in Il Rifiutologo, the reports from customers and its use contribute to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 11.3, 11.6, 12.2, 12.4, 12.5 and 12.8, as well as – thanks to the involvement of residents – to achieving goal 17.17.

Digi and Lode, for more digital services and schools

For the Hera Group, innovation and digitalisation are fundamental, starting with its own services: development of online services, creation of interactive apps for customers and residents, and promotion of dedicated digital channels and services.

The Digi e Lode project, now in its sixth year, sees customers and the company working together to digitise local schools by promoting Hera’s digital services, under the patronage of 113 local municipalities. Digi e Lode consolidates the contribution that the Group wishes to bring to the area served, in continuity with the corporate strategies that identify innovation, sustainable development of local areas and the activation of partnerships as the central drivers for increasing shared value, in line with the objectives set out in the UN 2030 Global Agenda.

As of the 2019/2020 edition, the project has been extended to the Marche and Abruzzo regions and as of the 2021/2022 school year to the Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Lombardy and Apulia regions as well, where five Group companies operate (EstEnergy, Ascotrade, Ascopiave Energie, Amgas Blu and Blue Meta).

The project involves all primary and secondary schools, both public and private, in the areas in question located in Emilia-Romagna, Marche and Abruzzo, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Lombardy and Apulia. For the 2022/2023 school year, a total of 180,000 euro has been made available to fund digitisation projects, benefiting students in 72 schools. Since the project began in 2017, the Group has already donated 565 thousand euro to 226 schools.

In order to participate, customers must activate one or more free digital services offered by Hera Group companies: by doing so, they donate points that can be distributed equally among the schools in their municipality or can be allocated to a specific school (in this case, they are multiplied by five): the Hera Group rewards the schools in the area that achieve the highest score.

The Digi e Lode project contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 4.a and 12.8, as well as – thanks to the involvement of residents and schools - to achieving goal 17.17.


Making environmental and social sustainability go hand in hand

Hera continues to respect its commitment to initiatives dedicated to the support and social inclusion of people facing hardship and in difficult or disadvantaged conditions, through the following initiatives, which have proven to be effective.

The Manolibera (Hands Free) project was created in 2011 out of a collaboration between the Forlì prison, Hera and the Techne training institute, inspired by the idea of some artists who are particularly interested in respect for the environment, eco-sustainability and social rehabilitation. A large room within the Forlì prison was made available to create a workshop, in the form of an original artisan paper mill, where inmates work daily, for 20 hours a week, making greeting cards, Christmas cards, photo albums, photo frames, notebooks, large and small, and other paper artefacts having a high artistic value. The exclusive production methods – entirely handmade, following an ancient Arab-Chinese processing technique – and the refined decorations make these products unique, refined and imbued with a remarkable artistic, social and ecological value that make them particularly appreciated in the wedding planning field. In 2022, the Cils Cooperative of Cesena was replaced by the social enterprise Altremani Srl, which has been entrusted with monitoring and verifying the activities carried out in the workshop, while the commercial part is managed in collaboration with the Berti bookbinding company, located in Forlì. The workshop is able to sustain its own operations and provide inmates with appropriate training. A collaboration with the national prison economy network “Freedhome”, the concept store dedicated to outstanding aspects of Italian prison economics, helps give the project considerable visibility. The workshop has developed a wide range of products for weddings and important events, including elegant invitations and refined thank-you cards, photo albums complete with boxes, precious wedding favours, frames and paintings. These products were presented at the main trade fairs and events in the “ceremonies sector” until 2019. The situation caused by the health emergency put considerable strain on the sector and the workshop’s production, which, however, has resumed as of 2022, with a total of five inmates involved in the activities, while more than 46 people have been involved since the start of the project.

The experience of the RAEEincarcere project continues. This project, launched in 2008, aims to promote social and employment inclusion of disadvantaged people undergoing criminal punishment, with the intention of assisting them in their progress back into legal conditions and the civil life of the community.

This project is currently active in the Bologna and Ferrara prisons, with the involvement of the national WEEE consortium Erion and the social cooperatives IT2 from Bologna and Il Germoglio from Ferrara, and also has the support of the Emilia-Romagna Region.

In appropriately equipped laboratories inside the prisons, inmates take turns in training and higher education activities, learning the skills and knowledge needed to disassemble large electrical and electronic equipment waste (WEEE R2 such as washing machines and dishwashers) coming from the collection managed by the Erion Consortium, which also include WEEE from Hera Group’s collection centres. Since its beginning, this project has enabled 38 ex-convicts to be trained and prepared for work in companies operating in the respective geographical areas, while a total of 115 inmates have benefited in various ways from internships and training courses leading to professional integration. The environmental benefits obtained since the start of this project are also considerable: over the entire period, the workshops have processed roughly 5,990 tonnes of electrical and electronic equipment waste, breaking it down into small fractions that were sent separately and entirely for recovery.

The projects described in this case study contribute to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 8.5, 12.2, 12.4, 12.5 and 17.17.


The TRED high school: new skills for young people

Since 2022, the Hera Group has been supporting, as a founding company, the creation of a new four-year high school dedicated to the ecological and digital transition, for a future-oriented education. The objective of this project, coordinated by ELIS, is to involve companies (along with the local areas in which they operate) in supporting an increase in young people’s awareness of the new transitions, through a combination of humanistic and technological elements, thus leading to the creation of a network dedicated to exchanges between schools, universities and companies.

The new high school, whose activities began in the 2022/2023 school year, involves more than 500 male and female students from 24 TRED high schools located throughout the country. As part of their educational programme, they will also take part in training sessions held by Hera Group experts on various topics related to the ecological transition: the integrated waste cycle, different types of waste treatment and recovery plants, the importance of relating to the local eco-system and representing in data the value generated by a quality sorted waste collection.

At the same time, the schools participated in a contest named “Take a photo for the environment – TRED edition”, through which they searched for information on the subject of sorted waste collection, also contributing to the development of the artificial intelligence of the “Il Rifiutologo” app to recognise the final destination of waste based on images.

“Take a photo for the environment”: the new ECOgames family game

The Ecogames platform, developed in 2021 to provide an amusing education on how to sort waste properly, was enhanced in 2022 with the new project “Take a photo for the environment” which, combining the principles of edutainment and citizen science, has made the students of two junior high schools in Modena and Ravenna the protagonists in creating a model of artificial intelligence that can recognise waste from a photo. This is both a game and a tool to collect data that will train an artificial intelligence model, while at the same time educating in an entertaining way, providing general information on the environment through questions and answers in the form of a quiz.

The educational package offered in classrooms with the participation of the teaching staff, adequately trained on artificial intelligence topics, focused on citizen science to explain how citizen engagement and participation in data collection is a fundamental aspect of scientific progress, combined with training on proper sorted waste collection.

The first edition of this project, which was held between April and June 2022, involved 236 students and 10 teachers and led to excellent results, both in terms of participation, with a 98% completion rate of the game sessions, and in terms of training the artificial intelligence model, which achieved an 82% accuracy on image recognition.

The success of the project prompted the Hera Group to make plans for it to be extended in 2023 to other schools in the area, in order to define a reference format which, in the future, can be included in the La Grande Macchina del Mondo project.

The ECOgames project described contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goal 11.3.

With Riciclandino, we help the environment and schools

Riciclandino has been helping our children move towards greater environmental awareness for over ten years. An environmental initiative dedicated to children and families, it involves all residents who have ties with schools, understood as institutions and communities of people. In this project, points are awarded for the sorted waste brought to drop-off stations, giving schools the opportunity to receive economic incentives. The students’ families can use the Riciclandino card to take their waste to drop-off stations, obtaining a discount on their bills, as provided for by municipal regulations, and offering an incentive coming to the same amount to their child’s school. The added value of this initiative consists in increasing interest towards the environment, and in a shared action that creates and strengthens the civic and social sense of the community. In the 2021-2022 school year, 17 municipalities in the Ravenna area joined the Riciclandino project, and 251 schools were involved, with a total of about 43,231 students. The participating schools were awarded a prize amounting to 49,424 euro for their activity. As part of the project, more than 401 tonnes of waste brought by students and their families were delivered to drop-off stations.

Students and families delivering sorted waste to drop-off stations contributes to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 11.3, 11.6, 12.2, 12.4, 12.5 and 12.8, as well as – thanks to the involvement of schools and residents – to achieving goal 17.17.

Plant visits for over eight thousand people

The Hera Group, through its subsidiary Herambiente Spa, offers guided tours of its waste treatment and recovery plants as a demonstration of its attention to environmental issues and an attempt to promote an ecologically responsible mindset. The guided tours, which can also be booked on-line through Herambiente’s website, were created in order to provide information about a set of plants that is among the most advanced in Europe in terms of operating and quality standards, and to give interested parties the opportunity to learn about the operating and management methods of the plants, describing the methods adopted to ensure proper waste management with the utmost respect for local areas, using solutions with the lowest overall impact on the environment.

In 2022, 1,509 people visited Herambiente Group plants, over 107 days. The visits involved waste-to-energy plants (766 visitors), composting and anaerobic digestion plants (423), sorting and recovery plants (227 participants), industrial waste plants (47 people) and landfills (46 people). These figures were up compared to the previous year, due to the easing of restrictions caused by the health emergency. There were also 327 visits to AcegasApsAmga drinking water plants, and 493 visits to Marche Multiservizi plants.

In addition, for several years Hera has been offering schools the possibility of organising “virtual” visits to the plants. This made it possible to continue activities even after the health emergency in 2021, when it was no longer possible for those interested to learn about the plants in person. In this way, students can remotely follow an environmental educator who explains the different phases of plant operations. During 2022, there were 8,863 virtual visitors, broken down as follows: 2,053 participants at waste-to-energy plants, 1,696 at sorting and recovery plants, 2,216 at drinking water plants, 173 at sewage treatment plants and 2,725 at cogeneration plants.

IN-PERSON VISITS BY TYPE OF PLANT

Plant visits contribute to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goals 4.7, 6.b and 12.8, as well as – through citizen involvement – to achieving goal 17.17.

Responsible projects and services accordion 7

Governance and creating value


Hera best multi-utility in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index

In 2022, for the third consecutive year, the Hera Group was confirmed as the leader in the Multi-Utility & Water section of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for sustainability performance regarding all three factors, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). As in past editions, this year Hera is included in both the world index (Dow Jones Sustainability World Index) and the European index (Dow Jones Sustainability Europe Index).

More specifically, Hera achieved an overall score of 90/100, the highest in the Multi-Utility & Water sector, against an industry average of 32/100. The ratings obtained were 89/100 in Environment, 91/100 in Social and 91/100 in Economic & Governance, gaining a leadership position in all three areas evaluated.

This recognition was made possible thanks to the strategy focused on sustainability and creating shared value that the Group has adopted for the last 20 years.

Listed since 2003 and included in the FTSE MIB since 2019, the Hera stock, which has been in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index since 2020, was also included in the MIB Esg Index in 2021, the first Italian blue-chip index dedicated to ESG best practices, launched by Euronext and Borsa Italiana.

Hera among the best multi-utilities in S&P Global Ratings’ ESG ratings

Following its recent confirmation, for the third consecutive year, in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, World and Europe, the Hera Group once again ranks internationally among the companies most attentive to sustainability and ESG aspects.

Hera’s new ESG evaluation was published in 2022 by the Sustainable Finance analysts at S&P Global Ratings. This is a cross-industry assessment of the Group’s ability to effectively manage its exposure to environmental, social and governance risks in the medium and long term, as well as to seize opportunities arising from changes in an evolving international environment.

This year, the Hera Group, among the first in Italy to have published its own ESG evaluation, as early as 2021, obtained an overall score of 81/100, making it one of the best companies internationally assessed by S&P Global Ratings. The score obtained (81) places it well above the international (72) and European (76) average.

In particular, in the ESG Evaluation, the Hera Group is considered by S&P Global Ratings as strongly prepared to implement its creating shared value strategy, contributing to the transition to a circular economy with low emissions.

Hera Luce becomes a Benefit Company

After amending Article 3 of its own Articles of Association, in June 2022 Hera Luce approved its transformation into an SB Benefit Company (pursuant to Law 208 of 28 December 2015). The purpose of “operating responsibly, sustainably and transparently towards people, the community, the local area and environment, cultural and social assets and activities, entities and associations and other stakeholders” was thus included in the Articles.

Hera Luce made this choice on a voluntary basis, one of the first in Italy in the public lighting sector to do so; thanks to this change in its Articles of Association, transparency and benefits for stakeholders have definitively become part of its corporate DNA. “Common benefit” refers to the pursuit of one or more positive effects (which can also be pursued by reducing negative effects) on people, communities, local areas and environment, cultural and social assets and activities, bodies and associations and other stakeholders. Benefit societies pursue these aims concerning a common benefit in a responsible, sustainable and transparent manner and their administration requires managers to balance the interests of shareholders and the community.

For Hera Luce, becoming a Benefit Company was the natural completion of the path undertaken in terms of attention to environmental sustainability, preservation of resources and the transformation of the cities served into “smart circular cities”, promoting the transition to a circular economy. The actions pursued by Hera are able to provide stakeholders with tools to develop a sustainable and smart city, capable of leading to the transition towards circularity.

To this end, the company intends to pursue the following common-benefit purposes:

  • Contribute to the prosperity of the local communities in which the company operates, by designing and implementing sustainable, resilient, and innovative models of urban development in its urban interventions (Hera Luce for a smart circular city/land);
  • Pursue carbon neutrality through actions aimed at increasing energy efficiency and the transition to renewables;
  • Guiding the transition to a circular economy model by means including measuring circularity from a life-cycle perspective.

Hera Luce intends to achieve these aims by ensuring the best working conditions for its own employees and those of its suppliers, while also promoting

public-private cooperation

with a multi-stakeholder approach.

 

The common benefits that Hera Luce intends to pursue are linked to an equal number of targets and indicators that bind it in terms of budgeting, financial obligations, reporting and transparency. The specific measures are related to the topics of the environment, energy efficiency and transition, and circular economy.

By becoming a Benefit Company, Hera Luce is committed to operating responsibly, sustainably and transparently towards all its stakeholders, balancing the interests of its shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees, local communities, and the environment itself.

Responsible projects and services accordion 5

Sustainability in managing human resources 


Circularity, resilience and sustainability also at Hera Group premises

With the gradual return to normality following the pandemic and the regular presence of staff in the Group’s offices, all routine maintenance and management activities of offices and supporting areas (changing rooms, canteens, common areas, etc.) resumed in 2022, following their normal cycle.

Nonetheless, all sanitation measures introduced during the pandemic were maintained, and some initiatives considered useful in improving the hygiene and cleanliness of the premises were either integrated into current activities or included in ordinary cyclical activities remunerated on a fee basis in the new global service contract, launched in its preliminary phase in late 2022 and fully operational as of 1 January 2023.

In this regard, note the maintenance of cyclic activities on cleaning filters in air conditioning systems, sanitising offices and an improvement in the hygiene of beverage distribution in cafeterias thanks to the use of contactless machines.

With regard to investment activities, note the following:

  • the completion of the restructuring and subsequent relocation of the Heratech’s Romagna laboratories, which occupy an area of approximately 2,800 square metres at the Ravenna site;
  • the completion of the changing rooms at Imola Casalegno, covering an area of approximately 500 square metres;
  • the construction and commissioning of the new cafeterias in Modena and Forlì, capable of supplying 300 and 150 meals per day respectively.

For all the interventions described above, disused or underused buildings were reused, thus contributing to limiting new constructions on virgin soil and keeping the sealed surface area of the Group’s buildings unchanged.

Bearing this in mind, in 2022 the water redevelopment project for the entire Molino Rosso area in Imola was also completed, with the creation of new green areas for the headquarters and available to workers. Above all, a natural lamination basin was obtained by depressurising the ground, which guarantees the correct flow of water in the compartment without the use of additional sealed areas. This initiative, which came alongside the completion of the public car parks provided to the City of Imola in late 2022, has in fact concluded all the fulfilments envisaged by the program agreement existing with the City of Imola for the Molino Rosso compartment.

In terms of energy efficiency, the transformation of indoor lighting systems continued, with a changeover from incandescent bulbs to LED bulbs, as did the renewal of hydronic systems, replacing obsolete pumps with more modern and high-performance increased-efficiency pumps, leading to a final saving of 72 toe compared to 2021.

Work continued on the Bologna Berti Pichat training centre and on renovating the Giugnano site in Gaggio Montano (Bologna), which will be completed and operative in 2023.

535,000 euro raised by the fourth edition of HeraSolidale

HeraSolidale aims to promote solidarity and support for social and environmental projects with the involvement of Hera Group employees, customers and the company itself.

The fourth edition of the project, launched in 2020, came to an end in 2022. This latest edition saw the Group’s employees choose, through a voting process, five of the 15 organisations selected by the company according to the following criteria: reputation and transparency of activities, contribution to one or more of the goals on the UN’s 2030 Agenda, and areas of intervention related to Hera’s services (accessory criterion).

A new feature of the fourth edition of HeraSolidale is the identification of two organisations dealing with environmental sustainability, in line with the Group’s business offer and that of Hera Comm, a key partner in the success of HeraSolidale, which come alongside the five organisations voted for by workers, making a total of seven. Unlike previous editions, the fourth edition of HeraSolidale lasted three years.

By the end of the fourth edition of the project, each of the seven organisations had collected donations corresponding to at least one of the goals of the projects supported:

  • ADMO Non-Profit Organisation - “A donor for everyone”. The first goal was achieved: purchasing 5,000 saliva tests that the association uses to select potential bone marrow donors and registering them with the Italian Register. Every year, many people need a transplant to combat diseases such as lymphoma and leukaemia.
  • ANT Italia Non-Profit Foundation - “Children in ANT”. The third goal was achieved: free at-home medical care for 40 children with cancer and 14 months of psychological support for minors coping with the illness of a loved one; training in schools to involve children and young people and deal with the issue of mourning.
  • Don Bosco Mission Community - CMB: “An educational-schooling centre in Ghana”. The second goal was achieved and exceeded: support for 38 months of a literacy school in Ghana by purchasing school material and helping with the costs of utilities and staff salaries.
  • Marevivo Non-Profit Organisation - “Let's save our seas from plastic”. Second goal achieved: commitment to collect 1,000 kg of plastic in a year, to keep Italian seas clean and promote recycling. To achieve this goal, Marevivo decided to support the LifeGate PlasticLess® project which uses modern Seabin technology.
  • Theodora Non-Profit Organisation - “Dr. Dream’s special hospital visits”. Fourth goal achieved: 18 months of “visits” by Dr. Dream to the children hospitalised at the Policlinico Sant’Orsola-Malpighi and the Bellaria Hospital in Bologna, making their hospitalisation a less traumatic experience.
  • Treedom Foundation Non-Profit Organisation - “Let’s green Madagascar!”. First goal achieved and exceeded: creation of a tree nursery in Madagascar, with the production and distribution of 3,500 plants to 100 farming families, who will receive agro-forestry training.
  • UNHCR - “An education for the children of Chad”. Second goal achieved: a year of schooling to roughly 2,000 refugee children in Chad aimed at improving teacher training, supplying teaching materials and promoting education for girls.

As was the case for the third edition of the project, in addition to Group employees who could take part either through a monthly donation directly deducted from their payslip, or through Hextra, the company’s integrated corporate welfare system, the project was also extended externally, as new Hera customers were able to choose to donate one euro to one of the seven organisations when signing a contract with Hera.

Furthermore, the Hera Group will make an important contribution, acting through the companies Hera Comm and Hera Comm Marche, which donated one euro for each new customer during the three years of the project.

This edition also saw two non-recurring initiatives: a fundraiser for the 2020 Coronavirus emergency, which collected 65,000 euro thanks to the donations made by Hera employees, and a fundraiser for the conflict in Ukraine, which so far has collected over 25,000 euro.

To support the HeraSolidale project, in 2021 the Group also decided to involve employees in donating a symbolic fee when individual employees decide to redeem company mobile phones and tablets for personal use.

From July 2020 until December 2022, approximately 535,000 euro were raised: roughly 210,000 euro were donated by employees through payroll deductions and Hextra, and over 325,000 euro were donated by Hera Comm and Hera Comm Marche.

In addition, the Hera Group, in parallel with the extraordinary editions of HeraSolidale, in 2020 donated €550,000 to health services in Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and Marche during the covid-19 emergency, and in 2022 donated €200,000 to the Emilia-Romagna Agency for Territorial Security and Civil Protection for the Ukrainian people affected by the conflict.

The fifth edition of HeraSolidale will begin in the summer of 2023, with four participating non-profit organisations selected by employees. Within March 2023, employees will choose the organisations from a list of 10 proposals, identified with the same criteria as the previous year, with the addition of an assessment of their position in the 5x1000 ranking.

The projects mentioned here, through partnerships with interested organisations and public administrations, contribute to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goal 17.17.

A digital identity for everyone

This initiative creates and assigns a Group digital identity to all employees. It changes the approach previously adopted, whereby specific digital services were only available if they were strictly related to work: with this project, a minimum set of digital services is identified, and thus implicitly also a digital identity that every employee belonging to the Group must possess regardless of their work activity. These services are: the internal corporate portal, corporate e-mail, the corporate collaboration systems of the Microsoft 365 package, and the corporate “SAM” services app.

The devices used for accessing digital identity were extensive, and at the end of the project included:

  • individual company workstations;
  • shared company workstations;
  • personal PCs;
  • company mobile phone or tablets;
  • personal mobile phones or tablets;
  • personal protection equipment totems.

In terms of training, a first-time access guide was handed out during distribution, including identity details (login name, e-mail, etc.). The guide then referred to the training provided for the use of the minimum services on the internal training portal (MyAcademy).

As regards communication, media coverage was given to this initiative, reaching all project participants both through articles in House Organ (the Group’s internal magazine) and through posters installed in all available offices. Lastly, the distribution process was adjusted to take account of new recruits.

During the initial recovery phase for employees who were without a digital identity, the project involved approximately 2,000 users. By 31 December 2022, 98.3% of Hera Group employees had activated their digital identity and were using it in their ordinary work activities.

This project aimed to bridge an initial gap in the digital divide, namely the availability of services. The company is now focusing on strengthening the digital skills of its employees: the “Digital Workplace” programme aims at an increased adoption of digital collaboration tools and, for more experienced employees, the possibility of developing customised productivity and advanced analysis tools.

Digital identities contribute to achieving UN 2030 Agenda goal 8.2.

How does the initiative contribute to responsible digital transformation? The benefits achieved in terms of Corporate digital responsibility factors

Delivering secure, privacy-compliant solutions that ensure the privacy of workers’ data.
Distribution, training and multi-device availability of digital services to all workers to promote digital inclusion and overcome the digital divide.
Extensive communication channels that use digitalisation as a tool to provide workers with all protective measures to ensure their health and safety.

Secure solutions delivered to the entire workforce to ensure IT security and a responsible use of technology, thus limiting exposure to external intrusions.

Responsible projects and services accordion 6

Sustainability in the supply chain


Supplier monitoring plan with a focus on social responsibility

Following the experience gained from numerous audits carried out, in 2022 a new training campaign was completed, aimed at an initial selection of contractual referents and works managers, to further increase awareness on supplier monitoring with a special focus on corporate social responsibility. The participants put themselves to the test by analysing concrete, real-life company cases, with the aim of identifying the correct behaviour to adopt and thus the contents of the corporate documents to which to make reference with respect to the Suppliers Monitoring Process, Model 231 and the Code of Ethics. This training campaign is currently being extended to all contract managers and works managers.

Specific on-the-job training sessions were also carried out, aimed at a correct and consistent compilation of on-site checklists.

During 2022, over 90 CSR assessment questionnaires were received from suppliers considered critical in terms of activity and contract amount. The documents were examined and clarifications and additions were requested for incomplete or missing parts. Based on the documents collected in previous years as well, 11 audits with a focus on corporate social responsibility were carried out, all at the suppliers’ premises. In several cases, specific audits were necessary to verify that the improvement path agreed upon had begun and that corrective actions had been taken. These audits were carried out by certified and referenced external personnel, selected through private negotiations, to guarantee the transparent and independent process required by the Group.

Lastly, 36 additional audits were carried out directly at Hera Group sites by Vendor Rating and Assurance, alongside the Quality, Safety and Environment Departments of Hera, Herambiente, AcegasApsAmga and Marche Multiservizi. These monitoring activities complement the periodic audits of the company contract contact persons, also concerning the proper management of subcontracts/subcontracts, if any. These checks were selected by focusing on the most critical situations in terms of impact on customers, risks for sustainability issues, and particularly negative ratings of certain economic operators.

The circular economy in the supply chain

Also in 2022, consistently with the “Resolve” model proposed by the Ellen Mac Arthur Foundation, the Hera Group applied the four cardinal principles of circularity (eco-efficiency, dematerialisation, renewability, recyclability) in its procurement, constantly seeking to reconcile them with the objectives of compliance with current regulations on procurement, equal treatment of suppliers, transparency, free competition and supplier rotation.

The principles of the circular economy were either translated into technical reward criteria within tenders using the most economically advantageous bid method, or were included in the technical specifications when planning requirements.

In 2022, a reporting model continued to be applied so as monitor the impact of the initiatives introduced. In particular, coherently with what had previously been done to monitor the use of sustainability criteria in contracting, the technical criteria traceable to circular economy principles were mapped.

As in previous years, circularity criteria were included in over 82% of the most economically advantageous bid method tenders in 2022, with an average score of 13.2. The value generated by circular elements stands at 13.8% of the value of 2022 tenders.

As of 2021, a lowest-price circularity reporting methodology has been progressively extended to all Hera Group purchases. Applying the new circularity reporting model, it is estimated that in tenders awarded in 2022 with the lowest price, the value generated by circular elements will amount to almost 10 million euro, or 4% of the total value.

Overall, considering both most economically advantageous bid method tenders and tenders with the lowest price, the value attributable to circularity elements stands at 10.4% of the value of all tenders awarded in 2022.

The main tenders awarded at the lowest price with elements of circularity included in the technical specifications are as follows:

  • in the open procedure relating to the sorting service for the recovery of residual waste from sorted waste collection in Padua, with a tender base amount of approximately 340,000 euro, in order to reduce the emission of pollutants into the atmosphere, special tender specifications require that at least 30% of the vehicles used by the contractor must have engines not less than Euro 5, or be electric, hybrid, or powered by methane or LPG. In addition, the waste collected must be sent for recovery to the supply chain consortia.
  • in the open procedure relating to the service of initiating the recovery of bulky waste from the sorted waste collection in the local area of the City of Trieste, with a tender base amount of approximately 200,000 euro, special tender specifications required the contractor to provide a report on the traceability of the waste collected.
  • for some pilot supplies, including the privately negotiated tender for supplying cast-iron manhole covers, in a tender amounting to approximately 140,000 euro, suppliers were asked to fill out a questionnaire on the material composition of the product and packaging in order to classify their supply from an environmental point of view and to verify whether they have environmental certifications, meet CAM requirements and comply with forthcoming European directives on the circular economy.

See the section of the Sustainability report dedicated to the selection of suppliers for an account of the technical reward criteria set out in the invitation letter for the main tenders awarded with the most economically advantageous bid method.

Responsible projects and services aggiornamento pagina

Page update 13 June 2023

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