Case study

The Hera Group is evaluating new opportunities in the development of hydrogen for its use in the civil sector, in public transport and in the hard-to-abate sectors.

In Modena and Trieste, activities have been started to convert abandoned industrial areas into new hydrogen valleys, with the aim of achieving a production of 770 tonnes of green hydrogen per year. The start is scheduled for 2026.

In Castelfranco Emilia (Mo), activities relating to the injection of hydrogen into urban gas distribution networks continue. In this field, the first national trial of hydrogen for civil use has been started with two temporary injections that took place at the end of 2022 and at the end of 2023, to study all aspects related to the use of hydrogen and natural gas mixtures in existing networks.

Hera has planned initiatives to reach 177 MW of installed photovoltaic capacity by 2028 on owned sites (closed landfills, water cycle plants and hydrogen valleys) and external sites (energy parks and agrivoltaic plants).

In 2024, the installed capacity is 5.3 MW, while work continues on the installation of a further 79 MW. The most significant projects include: the 14 MW energy park in Faenza (Ra); the energy park in Bologna, where the increase in power from 14 to 20 MW is under development; two plants on two closed landfills with a total capacity of 11.7 MW; a 9 MW photovoltaic park in Bondeno (Fe); two plants serving the production of hydrogen at the two hydrogen valleys of Modena (6.3 MW) and Trieste (5 MW); the 5 MW Horowatt agrivoltaic plant in Cesena.

Hera Comm supports condominiums, companies and public administrations in the development of energy sharing projects. In 2024, collaboration with various local administrations has been intensified, providing support to 12 municipalities to develop renewable energy communities; the projects include the potential construction of plants of less than 1 MW each and the involvement of around three thousand domestic users.

Furthermore, leveraging the experience acquired with the first pilot projects in the Bologna area - four in total, of which one is already operational, two completed and one whose work is in the start-up phase, - Hera Comm also presents itself to condominiums as a strategic partner, accompanying them in the various phases of the project. 

The Energy Park planned in the municipality of Faenza will cover a total area of approximately 70 hectares and includes the construction of an advanced agrivoltaic renewable energy production plant and the creation of ecological facilities for biodiversity in the peri-urban area, called Urban Forest. The total power of the agrivoltaic plant will be approximately 14 MW, and it is estimated to produce around 21.5 GWh of electricity. The plant will occupy an area of about 27 hectares divided into four subfields and will consist of support structures for the photovoltaic panels positioned at a height from the ground that allows the passage of agricultural machinery used for cultivation. The Urban Forest part, which will cover a total area of about 15 hectares, involves the planting of native shrubs and trees: two more compact areas for the growth and protection of biodiversity and the enhancement of the rows and borders that characterize the area. The creation and management of a naturalistic green area will help improve the territory's capacity to host a quantity of native plants, pollinating insects, and other elements of biodiversity, thereby enhancing the ecological value of the territorial context in which it is inserted.

The Urban Forest will consist of three parts:

• Traditional planting on about six hectares, which will involve the planting of a total of about five thousand plants;
• Planting with the Miyawaki method on about 1.5 hectares: this is a specific reforestation technique designed to accelerate the growth of native forests in urban and peri-urban environments. The main characteristics of this methodology are: diversity of native plant species to recreate the complexity and resilience of natural ecosystems and high density of tree and shrub species to promote competition, rapid growth, and the development of a self-sufficient ecosystem;
• Meadow sowing on about 7.5 hectares: it is planned to sow a mixture of native herbaceous species to create a meadow area attractive to pollinators and antagonists of harmful insects.

To ensure the growth and protection of biodiversity in the area, a monitoring plan has been prepared by the University of Bologna, Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences, which allows measuring and quantifying this growth in the coming years compared to the current agricultural context. The agrivoltaic plant will avoid the emission of about 5.7 thousand tons of CO2 per year. The initiative has been admitted to the investment support measures provided by the PNRR and is expected to be completed by June 2026.

The Energy Park planned in the municipality of Bologna, in the northern quadrant of the city, will cover an area of about 68 hectares; of these, about 28-35 hectares will be allocated for the installation of an advanced agrivoltaic plant. The production of renewable electricity within the energy park will be made possible through the construction of an agrivoltaic plant, where the installation of photovoltaic panels is planned in such a way as to allow the normal continuation of activities on agricultural fields.

It is planned to create the area intended for public green space, the Urban Forest, on an area of about 20 hectares in a zone south of the lot affected by the agrivoltaic plant, with positive impacts on biodiversity in the peri-urban area.

In particular, the Urban Forest will be divided as follows:

• Urban park, forest, and clearings: covering an area of about 1.3 hectares with over one hundred plants;
• Urban park, rustic meadow: covering an area of 1.5 hectares;
• Biodiversity forest, arboreal plan: will include two areas of about 5.3 hectares and about 6.5 hectares. Since it does not require human usability but will only be a refuge for the animal world, it will be a dense forest consisting of species planted without a module or planting scheme, for a total of about 2.5 thousand plants;
• Biodiversity forest, shrub and meadow plan: will include a total area of about 6.8 hectares, divided into two hectares of shrubs, 2.8 hectares of rustic meadow, and two hectares of flowering meadow with a total of about 900 shrubs;
• Rows, for a total of about 200 plants.

To ensure the growth and protection of biodiversity in the Urban Forest area, a monitoring plan will be provided that will allow measuring and quantifying this growth in the coming years compared to the current context. The agrivoltaic plant will be able to actively contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by about 5.5 thousand tons of CO2 per year.

In 2024, the Hera Group defined a decarbonization path to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, in line with scientific indications to limit global warming to 1.5° C by the end of the century. This goal will be pursued with an overall reduction in Scope 1 + Scope 2 + Scope 3 from gas and electricity sales emissions of around 90% (compared to 2019) and the removal of all residual emissions at the end of the decarbonisation process.

The levers identified to reduce our own emissions and those of our customers include: energy efficiency; maintaining full coverage of internal electricity consumption with certified renewable energy; the production of renewable energy; the capture and storage of carbon dioxide from various waste-to-energy plants; the progressive electrification of the customer base with consequent supply of energy from renewable sources; the proposal of solutions for energy saving and for the self-production of photovoltaic energy.

Achieving the target will result in a reduction of Scope 3 emissions for each energy customer from 3.3 tonnes in 2019 to less than 0.2 tonnes by 2050.

Hera confirms targets on packaging recycling and landfill reduction, showing that it is ahead of both EU targets for urban waste. In the territory served by the Group, all three main European objectives have been achieved: landfill (2.2% by 2024 compared to a maximum of 10% by 2035), packaging  (66% by 2023 compared to a target of 65% by 2025 and 70% by 2030) and the overall recycling rate (61% by 2023 compared to a target of 55% by 2025, 60% by 2030 and 65% by 2035). Data on the last two targets will be updated to 2023 in the coming months and as usual published in the report "On the traces of waste".

The report "On the traces of waste" by the Hera Group, of which the fifteenth edition was published in 2024 with data for 2023, certifies in a transparent and complete way the destination of waste sorted by citizens in the territories served.

In 2023, the percentage of separate collection actually recovered reached 88%, of which 75% recycled and 13% recovered as energy recovery or stabilized organic fraction. The project follows the flows of the main recycling sectors: paper, iron, wood, metals (aluminium packaging, steel and tinplate), organic, plastic, green and glass. In particular, there is 99% recovery for wood and iron, 93% for glass, 92% for green (of which 59% recycled) and metals, 88% for paper, 85% for organic (of which 80% recycled) and 77% for plastic (of which 32% recycled).

The report also gives the recycling rate of municipal waste collected overall in the territories served, which reached 61% in 2023, several years ahead of the European targets (55% by 2025 and 60% by 2030).

In November 2019, an experimental circular economy project was launched between Hera and Aliplast, which aimed to increase the virtuous reuse of reels made from post-consumer recycled plastic, in the production of bags for separate waste collection. The ultimate goal was to "close the circle" of the life cycle of products, increasing their recycling and re-use, so as to increase economic sustainability and reduce environmental impact as much as possible.

The pilot phase of the project ended in October 2020 and effective industrialisation of the process on all territories managed by the Group began in November 2020, with important results: between 2020 and 2024, 7,863 tons of rolls were produced for the production of sacks.

Going beyond mere numbers, the project has materialized other important positive results: the quality of the bags is clearly improved because it is Aliplast itself to guarantee the technical requirements. In addition, the problem of disputes with third-party suppliers who did not comply with product specifications was eliminated and the service offered to Hera users was improved, resulting in a positive image return for the Group.

In order to make available information on the carbon footprint of some products, Aliplast has been carrying out the calculation of the carbon footprint on five types of product since 2018: PE granules, PE film, PET granules, PET sheet and PET scale.

The reasons that have led Aliplast to commission this study are the search for environmental performance of these products, with reference to the phenomenon of global warming, then the quantification of greenhouse gas emissions related to the functional unit of product (set at one kilogram) to identify the life cycle stages with higher environmental criticalities and take action 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 impacts of LCA is CO2 equivalent, whose calculation methodology 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 the corresponding virgin products. The result, expressed in kg of CO2 equivalent, states that in 2024, against a production of approximately 100 thousand tons between PE granules, PE film, PET granules, regenerated PET plate, the production of approximately 213 thousand tons of CO2 equivalent was avoided, equivalent to more than 500,000 barrels of oil. The greenhouse gas savings achieved thanks to the contribution of suppliers and customers who choose Aliplast recycled products can be compared to the emissions of around 120,000 petrol-powered vans that travel 10,000 kilometres in a year.

In March 2025, the Hera Group inaugurated FIB3R in Imola, the first European plant capable of regenerating carbon fiber on an industrial scale. The total investment to build the plant, which will consist of two production lines, amounts to about 11.2 million euros partly financed by PNRR. The plant will be able to produce 320 tons of recycled carbon fiber annually, with an energy saving of 75% compared to virgin fiber.

SCART® is the artistic and communication project of the Hera Group, which for twenty-five years has been developing the binomial art and rejection. It is a waste art project born within one of the industrial waste treatment and disposal plants of Herambiente. Today SCART® is a registered trademark throughout the European Community designed to revive some of those many industrial waste that are daily disposed of as waste and thanks to the creativity of the artists who collaborate in the project, are transformed into unique, exclusive pieces of art in full respect of the circular economy. The objective is to encourage responsible behaviour in environmental matters, offering new incentives for creating artistic objects, design, fashion clothing and shows using waste as raw material. Furniture components, games, musical instruments, clothes, paintings, statues, but also sets for performances and stage costumes were made. SCART® is an invitation to think about new, intelligent, creative and above all sustainable lifestyles.

Numerous initiatives at national and international level such as, for example, the important agreements opened with the Academies of Fine Arts in Florence, Bologna and Ravenna, Brera Milano, with the Free Academy of Fine Arts in Rimini, with the Design Academy of San Marino. Important collaboration profile also social, with the boys and girls of the community of recovery of San Patrignano.

Since 2012 the SCART® project has been an exclusive partner for the creation of costumes and stage components for the concert by Andrea Bocelli at the Teatro del Silenzio in Lajatico (Italy), the small Tuscan town that gave birth to the great tenor. For each edition, about 150 stage costumes are made using only industrial waste.

As part of the Group’s transition toward a circular economy, the collection of used cooking oils has gained increasing visibility and importance, also generating significant economic returns. The street collection service for used vegetable oils began in 2018, using aesthetically pleasing containers specifically designed to collect residual household cooking oil.

The results of this collection feed into a virtuous circular economy project. In fact, the used vegetable oil collected by Hera from households in the areas it serves, once processed in certified facilities, is transported to Eni's Biorefinery in Porto Marghera (VE), where it is transformed into hydrogenated biofuel known as HVOlution. Hera uses this biofuel to power more than 30 waste collection trucks in its service areas (over 500,000 liters consumed in 2024). In 2025, it is expected that more than 60 collection trucks will be powered by this biofuel, with a projected consumption of over 1,000,000 liters during the year.

The total number of containers for the street collection of used vegetable oils within Hera Spa’s operating area amounts to 879 units, distributed across 128 municipalities and serving a population of approximately 2.4 million inhabitants.

In 2024, the volume of used vegetable oils collected from households reached 1,086 tonnes, a slight decrease compared to previous years. The data refers to flows collected in the areas managed by Hera Spa, Marche Multiservizi, and AcegasApsAmga.

In addition to household collections, in 2024 Hera expanded its collection activity from commercial users, which began in 2021. Over the years, the project has enabled contracts to be signed with restaurants and companies in the food sector, including major catering groups such as Camst, Cirfood, Elior, Road House, and Chef Express. In total, more than 1,300 food service outlets were involved in the project. The project's expansion made it possible in 2024 to send 3,392 tonnes of vegetable oil to biorefineries for biofuel production.

In total, the amount of oil collected in 2024 was 4,478 tonnes (1,086 from households and 3,392 from commercial users). This generated significant positive environmental impacts, as shown in the following table.

Among the actions initiated over the years, since 2020 Herambiente has undertaken an innovative biomonitoring project to further study the environment surrounding some of its plants and the potential impacts exerted on it. The project, named "Capiamo," aims to use bees as bioindicators to assess the quality of the environment surrounding some of the plants and landfills managed by the Group.

In 2024, "Capiamo," already active at the Pozzilli (Is) waste-to-energy plant, the Sant’Agata Bolognese (Bo) composting plant, the Serravalle Pistoiese (Pt) landfill, the Padova waste-to-energy plant, and the Cordenons (Pn) landfill, also started at the Bologna waste-to-energy plant. During the year, the three bee colonies used showed optimal health and a remarkable capacity for adaptation, demonstrating that even the surrounding urban context can be favorable for their development. In this case as well, analyses of the hive products found no contributions from the industrial plant.

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

The Digi e Lode project, now in its eighth year, sees customers and the company working together to digitize local schools through the promotion of Hera's digital services (such as enrollment in #genHERAZIONI, the Hera Group's program that rewards sustainable actions, electronic bill sending, enrollment in online services, apps for tablets and smartphones, or the use of digital self-care areas).

Digi e Lode consolidates the contribution that the Group wants to bring to the territory, in continuity with the corporate strategies that identify innovation, sustainable development of the territory and activation of partnerships as the central drivers for the development of shared value in coherence with the goals dictated by the UN Global Agenda 2030.

From the 2024/2025 school year, the project - in addition to full coverage of Emilia-Romagna, Marche and Abruzzo - has also been extended to the new territories where Hera Comm operates: the municipalities of Alessandria, La Spezia, Lucca and Perugia.

The project involves all primary and secondary schools, both public and peer, in the territories involved in Emilia-Romagna, Marche and Abruzzo, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria, Tuscany, Umbria and Puglia. In the 2024/2025 school year, it puts up for grabs a total of 197.5 thousand euros intended to fund digitization projects benefiting students in 79 schools. Since the start of the project (in 2017), the Group has already donated 942.5 thousand euros to 377 schools.

To participate, it is enough for customers to activate one or more free digital services offered by Hera Group companies: in this way they donate points that will be shared equally among the schools in their municipality, or they can choose to assign them to a specific school (in this case the points will be multiplied by five): the Hera Group rewards the schools in the area that achieve the highest score.

The Hera Group has been implementing waste reduction projects for many years in collaboration with local non-profit organizations, with the support of Last Minute Market, a social enterprise and accredited spin-off of the University of Bologna that promotes the fight against waste and environmental sustainability. CiboAmico, FarmacoAmico, and Cambia il finale are structured and consolidated initiatives that promote good reuse habits and generate positive social impacts through the activities carried out by the involved non-profit organizations, in line with the principles of social responsibility and environmental protection of the Hera Group.

CiboAmico, launched in 2009, represents a concrete action developed by the company to promote the development of the circular economy, connecting various local entities in the spirit of shared social responsibility, providing concrete help to those in need. The recovered meals are donated to non-profit organizations that provide hospitality and daily assistance to people in difficulty. The project is active in eight company canteens: Bologna, Granarolo dell’Emilia, Rimini, Ferrara, Ravenna, Modena, Forlì, and Cesena. Since the beginning of the project, approximately 155,000 meals have been donated (about 17,000 in 2024 alone), with an economic value of around 634,000 euros. This has prevented the production of over 68 tons of waste (equivalent to more than 150 bins) and the emission of over 280 tons of CO2. At the end of 2017, CiboAmico expanded beyond company canteens to involve commercial establishments in the fight against waste in Modena, Imola, and Bologna.

FarmacoAmico is a project promoted by Hera to collect non-expired medicines and create a solidarity reuse network in the area with the aim of preventing waste production by spreading good practices and supporting organizations that assist vulnerable community groups. Intact medicines, with at least six months of validity and in adequate storage conditions, are reused by non-profit organizations operating in local or decentralized cooperation projects. Launched in 2013, FarmacoAmico now involves 38 municipalities in the Emilia-Romagna region, 214 pharmacies, and 36 non-profit organizations, some operating in Italy and others abroad, along with various partners, institutions, trade associations, and companies. Since the beginning of the project, approximately 600,000 packages of medicines have been collected and reused (about 80,000 in 2024 alone), with a total economic value of over 7.3 million euros, which potentially corresponds to a cost saving for the National Health System.

Cambia il finale is a project that has been active for eleven years, allowing the interception of all items in good condition, otherwise destined for bulky waste collection, to enable their reuse, thanks to a network of non-profit organizations spread throughout the territory, capable of giving new life to the items donated by citizens and collected at home, replacing the service offered by Hera aimed at recycling or disposal. The non-profit partners of the project at the end of 2024 are 16, distributed throughout the Emilia-Romagna region served by Hera, ensuring coverage of all major cities. Since the beginning of the project, over 6,600 tons of waste have been avoided (over 1,000 in 2024 alone), resulting in significant environmental savings and lower waste collection costs.

Herambiente offers the opportunity to take guided tours of its waste treatment and recovery plants, demonstrating its commitment to environmental issues and the promotion of an ecologically responsible mindset. The guided tours, which can also be booked online from the Herambiente website, were created to showcase one of the most advanced plant parks in Europe in terms of operational and quality standards. They aim to inform interested parties about the functioning and management of these plants, ensuring maximum respect for the territory through solutions with the least overall environmental impact.

In 2024, 3,546 visitors toured the Herambiente plants over 148 days. The visits included the waste-to-energy plants (2,152 visitors), the selection and recovery plants (795 visitors), the composting and anaerobic digestion plants (549 visitors), and other plants (50 visitors).

During the 2023-2024 school year, a total of 4,273 young visitors toured the Hera plants. The "Itinherari invisibili" path, an activity always in high demand by classes, offers a journey into the heart of the plants, accompanied by expert educators and supported by Hera technicians. The goal is to allow students to closely discover the main technological cycles of water, energy, and waste, the significant work and innovation of Hera, along with the expertise of the people who ensure the safe, correct, and sustainable management of resources and essential services to citizens every day.

Between February and April 2024, 193 classes, based on their needs, were able to choose between in-person visits to the plants or immersive virtual tours in the classroom, always with the help of expert educators. Compared to the previous year, a new virtual tour on waste at the Aliplast plant was introduced to meet the growing interest of students and teachers in the plastic cycle.

Visits to the AcegasApsAmga water purification and treatment plants were 1,772 and 161 respectively, while there were 300 visits to the Marche Multiservizi plants.

The 2G electricity meters provide complete and timely data on consumption, allowing for more efficient, reliable and economical management of the power network by the distributor, with benefits for the entire energy supply chain: thanks to detailed and timely data, the seller can make proposals and services that are increasingly in line with the needs and specificities of customers, while the user can have greater awareness of consumption, thus achieving energy and economic savings.

As part of the gender equality certification process according to the UNI PDR 125 standard (which involves 11 companies within the Group), a strategic plan has been defined that includes a series of actions and objectives aimed at improving the indicators required by the certification.

In 2023, 16 objectives were identified in the following areas:
Selection and hiring

• Career management
• Pay equity
• Work-life balance
• Parenting and caregiving
• Prevention of all forms of physical, verbal, and digital abuse (harassment) in the workplace

During 2024, all the objectives outlined in the plan were achieved. In particular, the main goals included increasing management awareness of turnover indicators by gender and the gender pay gap, enhancing staff skills on gender equality issues, improving work-life balance by extending entry flexibility and the scope of those eligible for smart working, creating a unique digital environment dedicated to parenting initiatives, disseminating internal communication on gender equality, and promoting a culture of gender equality in all areas.

For 2025, improvement objectives have also been defined in the new strategic plan, which includes a total of 12 actions related to the six intervention areas outlined in the standard.

In 2024, HeraSolidale continues its mission to promote solidarity and support social projects with the involvement of Hera Group employees and the company itself.

The fifth edition of the project began in September 2023 and will conclude in March 2026. In this latest edition, employees of the Group selected four out of ten organizations chosen by the company based on the following criteria: the notoriety and transparency of their activities, their contribution to one or more of the UN's 2030 Agenda goals, and their relevance to Hera's services (an additional criterion). The four organizations chosen by the employees are Fondazione Ant Italia Onlus, Ageop Ricerca, Fondazione Airc, and Medici Senza Frontiere. Additionally, UNHCR was included to continue supporting the Ukrainian people due to the ongoing conflict.

From September 2023 to December 2024, approximately 225,000 euros were donated to the five partner organizations of the fifth edition of the project, thanks to contributions from employees, who donate through payroll deductions and Hextra, as well as from Hera Comm, Hera Comm Marche, and EstEnergy.