August 2022

In the Strategic Plan 2022-2028, Italgas has increased its ambitious environmental targets compared to the previous Plan, both in terms of energy consumption and CO2 emissions, while making a serious commitment to achieving carbon neutrality in 2050.

The targets set in the social sphere are aimed at counting on people with new skills, who will materially shape transformation that Italgas means to pursue in the coming years, which is not only digital.

To play a role as enabler of the energy transition, Italgas focused on a set of optimization and efficiency actions across operational assets.

This will allow for a reduction in net energy consumption compared to the 2020 level on a like-for-like basis, with a planned decrease of 27% by 2028 – the year that coincides with the horizon of the new Plan – and 33% by 2030, in line with the path indicated by the European Union.

This is a greater ambition, considering that in the previous Plan Italgas envisaged a 25% reduction by 2027.

A number of well-identified initiatives will contribute to the material achievement of these goals.

1. On the industrial consumption front, efficiencies will be pursued in pre-heating processes, through on-site production and self-consumption of renewable energy, mainly leveraging on the construction of photovoltaic plants as well as through the digitization of plant monitoring and control systems.
2. Concerning the consumption related to buildings, Italgas will capitalize on the solid experience that the Groups’ two ESCo companies can boast in refurbishment activities and on the benefits that might come from the application of digitized monitoring and controls, through a constant effort to optimize and modernize assets.
3. An additional area will be that of the Company’s fleet of service vehicles, which Italgas plans to progressively replace in the coming years.

Even in the case of Scope 1 and 2 climate-changing emissions, Italgas set new and more ambitious targets, with a planned reduction of 34% by 2028 and 42% by 2030, on a like-for-like basis compared to the 2020 level. These intermediate targets are expected to represent two milestones along the road that will lead to a new ultimate target, carbon neutrality, which Italgas aspires to achieve in 2050.

Behind the pursuit of these goals is the increasingly widespread use of Picarro technology in the search for leakages in the distribution network and a smarter maintenance of the infrastructure.

For Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, linked to the supply chain, Italgas is aiming for a 30% reduction by 2028 and 33% by 2030, compared to a 2020 recalculated taking into account supplier-specific emission factors and assuming an unchanged perimeter. Again, the ultimate goal is to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050.

In order to pursue these substantial Scope 3 emission reductions, the Group plans to raise awareness among its suppliers through additional engagement initiatives and the launch of carbon removal initiatives starting from 2030. This is a particularly ambitious goal that was introduced for the first time in the 2022-2028 Strategic Plan.

Italgas is aware that its people need to have adequate competences and work with a new approach, with the aim to achieve its transformation as a company.

For this reason, activities aimed at professional development and reskilling will continue during the Plan’s period, through more than 600 thousand hours of training provided by the new Managerial Academy. The average training time per employee, which has already increased from 19 hours in 2020 to 29 in 2021, is expected to intensify further, reaching 38 hours in 2028.

Alongside these training activities for the current staff, new resources will be recruited from the market with the aim of acquiring new skills, especially in the digital field, and the insourcing of critical activities, in the engineering and infrastructure maintenance areas.

By the end of the Plan, Italgas expects to have a new profile for its people.

The average age is expected to reach 45.5 years compared to the average of 49.5 years in 2021 and 52.4 years at the time of the demerger form Snam in 2016: a drop that will be achieved through the generational change underway, which nonetheless can prove to be challenging in terms of change management and definition of the needed set of competences.

At the same time, Italgas aims to have people increasingly involved in issues that are strategic to the Company. Through the engagement initiatives that will be put in place, the Net Promoter Score is expected to rise from 79% in 2021 to between 80% and 85% in 2028.

Lastly, Italgas is committed to significantly increase the female presence in leadership roles. The incidence of women in key positions, which has already taken a big step from 2020 to 2021, going from 17% to 22%, is expected in a range between 25% and 27% by 2028.