For the sixth consecutive year, Hera has been included in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook, ranking in the “Top 1%” of the world’s best-performing companies in its sector,with outstanding results particularly in governance and social performance
According to Standard & Poor’s, we are the world’s leading company in the Multi & Water Utility sector and has once again earned a place in S&P Global’s Sustainability Yearbook. This achievement follows an in-depth assessment of our performance across environmental, social and governance (ESG) dimensions.
In particular, we ranked first globally in our reference sector with a score of 83 out of 100, compared with an industry average of 37 out of 100.
The multi-utility is recognised as an international best practice across several areas:
- Governance: Hera stands out for the transparency of its reporting, its careful and effective risk management – including cyber risk – and its exemplary approach to managing the supply chain in a sustainable way;
- Environmental performance: the Group achieved top results in efficient energy management within its internal processes and in safeguarding biodiversity in the areas where it operates. It also excelled in the reporting and management of risks and opportunities related to climate change;
- Social dimension: Hera obtained the highest global score for respect for human rights, the development of its employees’ human capital, customer relations, privacy protection and engagement with local communities.
S&P Global’s analysis therefore portrays a forward-looking company that leads a benchmark made up of the sector’s top performers worldwide.
These highly positive assessments – released shortly after the publication of the new Business Plan – confirm our ability to pursue a sustainability strategy based on continuous commitment across the entire value chain, while keeping a close eye on international best practices. The evaluations also highlight the key strengths identified by analysts: a company that continues to deliver significant shared value creation, reflected in a forecast double-digit average annual Total Shareholders Return.
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Press release
Hera Group approves the financial statement results
The year ended positively, despite the nationwide impact coming from the Coronavirus emergency, during which Hera stood by its stakeholders and provided support. Thanks to its solid, efficient and sustainable multi-business strategy, Hera thus continued to grow and create value for shareholders and local communities
The Hera Group closed the 2020 financial year positively, as well as in all quarters, even during a particularly difficult year on account of the Coronavirus emergency. The Group’s Board of Directors unanimously approved the consolidated economic results along with the Sustainability report.
Thanks to its solid and efficient multi-business model, and good operating, financial and fiscal management, Hera succeeded in maintaining growth in its results while at the same time supporting its stakeholders. Even during the lockdown, indeed, Hera guaranteed continuity, safety, quality and efficiency in all services and also provided help not only for its own employees but also its customers, suppliers and local communities. This consisted first in allowing customers to pay with delays or by instalments and offering reverse factoring to small and medium businesses, and later participating in specific solidarity initiatives across the areas served. These initiatives were appreciated by customers, as appears in the recent customer satisfaction poll which, despite the difficult external context, confirmed a high customer satisfaction rate (73/100), with approval of the management and services provided during the emergency coming to 85/100.
The Hera Group succeeded in continuing along the path of uninterrupted growth seen since its establishment in 2002, once again leveraging its own strategy: a balanced mix of internal and external growth, with significant economies of scale and higher synergies than expected. All of this while continuously striving to create value for its stakeholders, respecting the directions set out by the new Business Plan to 2024, which aims at accompanying all areas served in a recovery that respects European strategies and the goals on the UN’s 2030 Agenda.
“These results indeed reflect our uninterrupted activities, in spite of the pandemic, supporting the economic fabric in which we operate. Quarter after quarter, we succeeded in meeting the challenges posed by the emergency, reacting quickly to reorganise our work and find solutions to protect our assets on the one hand, and customers on the other. In a complex context, we defined new projects and signed agreements with outstanding partners, and in the second half of 2020, gaining speed in particular towards the end of the year, we benefitted from the overall recovery seen in economic activities in the areas we serve. These positive results were reflected in all main indicators and are all the more significant in light of the difficulties caused by the health emergency: we thus confirmed our track record of 18 years of growth and further improved our financial solidity, with positive consequences for our public and private shareholders, to whom we have decided to pay, already this year, an increased dividend coming to 11 cents per share”. Executive President, Tomaso Tommasi, di Vignano went on to say at the end of the Board of Directors meeting of 24 March.
Chief Executive Officer, Stefano Venier, added: “The growth achieved by the Hera Group was strongly supported by its partnership with Ascopiave, which enabled the Group to expand further in the Triveneto region. Despite the complex context, we were able to immediately extract a significant part of the expected synergies, thus giving a crucial contribution to the increase in our cash flows in 2020. The year was also dedicated to further progress in fully integrating sustainability into our business strategies: we are committed to promoting further development in this direction, with projects for circularity, carbon neutrality and technological innovation, respecting European policies and the goals on the UN’s 2030 Agenda. This also includes a few collaborations recently launched, such as the one with Snam for developing hydrogen”.
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