Milan, July 1 (Adnkronos) – Commit to decarbonization and increase the amount of waste treated according to the principles of the circular economy; support municipalities in the development of sustainable urban drainage; increase the number of remotely managed plants and those digitalized with the application of Artificial Intelligence; create a virtuous ecosystem of shared and widespread corporate social responsibility, through raising awareness among suppliers. And then, valorize people, reduce the gender pay gap and promote diversity inclusion, but above all expand its activities through the management of hydraulic risk, the development of infrastructures to increase the resilience of the territory, the production of energy from renewable sources. These are some of the new objectives that Gruppo Cap, the green utility that manages the water service of the Metropolitan City of Milan, has included in its new sustainability plan, a document aimed at guiding the company’s choices for the coming years and which arises from the evaluation of the results achieved so far, but also from the analysis of the external context, profoundly changed compared to 2019, the year in which the green utility published its first plan.
The new sustainability plan is first and foremost a sustainable development strategy, with a long-term vision, which looks to 2033 and identifies the challenges of the sector, the results already achieved and the next objectives. It represents the completion of the process of redefining the business model, through which Cap has integrated sustainability into its industrial activity. The objective is to guarantee the generation of value over time for shareholders, collaborators, stakeholders and the territory, and to lay the foundations for a more sustainable future for future generations.
“Every step taken in transforming our business to make it more sustainable has been done with a participatory approach, involving our people, the local community, all partners, collaborators, suppliers and customers – explains the president of Gruppo Cap, Yuri Santagostino -. Today, an in-depth dialogue with stakeholders is even more necessary, especially in light of the new role we are assuming as enablers of the green transition of the territories. If the objective is therefore to make water and innovation the pillars on which to build circular economy processes, together with the transition to sustainable production models, the participation of all is essential for sharing the value produced, the true mission of a fully public company like Gruppo Cap”.
For these reasons, warns Santagostino, “the update of the sustainability plan was born thanks to the contribution of a plurality of subjects, who have traced together with us the new route until 2033 and to whom we are bound by a duty of transparency and credibility. With this new document we set ourselves more ambitious goals and broaden our horizons. Because sustainability is not a medal to pin on your chest, but a continuous, tiring and exciting process that never ends, but only new beginnings”.
In this era, characterized by climate crisis and socio-political and economic instability, which have crumbled beliefs that seemed to be rooted, Cap has chosen to invest in the transformation of the water and environmental sector by integrating sustainability into the business, to become what it is today: the green utility capable of enabling the transition of the territory. Cap’s sustainability strategy is based on 3 fundamental pillars that describe the identity of Cap and its people: Sensitive, Resilient and Innovative.
Sensitive to people’s needs, to increase the well-being and trust of increasingly aware and demanding communities. Resilient in assets, governance and management to protect an essential asset for life. Innovators in the market, to anticipate regulations and fuel the ability to network.
The three pillars are in turn divided into 9 macro-objectives, for a total of 45 performance indicators. In continuity with the document developed in 2019, to build the new sustainability plan, Gruppo Cap has adopted a participatory approach and involved collaborators, the local community, partners, customers and stakeholders. The document is therefore the result of the choral work of Cap’s management, which has traced a new route after carefully listening to all the actors in the value chain.
Annual monitoring of KPIs, scenario analysis for updating targets and objectives, and finally analysis of changes in the internal context of the company’s evolution: it is on the basis of these three inputs that Gruppo Cap has identified the 3 drivers of change: current events, understood as the set of regulatory and socio-ecological changes that determine the need to review targets and objectives, coherence, which has forced the green utility to align its strategy with the business and all governance and strategic planning tools and, finally, rationalization according to the Smart method, for which each target is Specific, Measurable, Assigned, Realistic, Timed.
Furthermore, the three pillars – Sensitive, Resilient and Innovative – have been connected to three business lines identified by Cap’s new industrial plan: the first, innovation of the water service, the heart and starting point of the strategy, which concerns innovations that connect water, energy and waste; the second, based on partnerships for the green transition, which project Cap into the regional and national management of circular economy plants and resilient water infrastructures; finally the most ambitious, which opens up new sustainability markets to Cap by making full use of territorial and sustainability synergies.
Rising temperatures, droughts and extreme weather events have highlighted the importance of water. Therefore, the water sector must rethink its strategies by integrating industrial plans with mitigation and adaptation actions. For Gruppo Cap, this translates into the need to broaden the scope of its activities to adjacent areas, such as the management of hydraulic risk, the construction of infrastructures to increase the resilience of the territory, and the production of energy from renewable sources. Water is therefore confirmed at the heart of Gruppo Cap’s industrial strategy.
Five years after the development of the first sustainability plan, it is possible to confirm that the strategy adopted is credible and that the company has built a path to achieve its sustainability objectives by integrating them into its industrial action. Sustainability commitments are translating into concrete actions that generate positive impacts. Among the main successes, the numerous sustainable urban drainage interventions and the high rate of innovation stand out. On this front, Cap has activated projects for approximately 70 million euros with the aim of renewing the infrastructure. The 3D mapping of all the networks will also be completed to simulate the interventions under study, so as to minimize the impact on the soil.
However, there are also objectives in which it is necessary to commit more or that need to be redesigned, to be more challenging and in line with the times, such as the one relating to the consumption of water per capita and that of tap water compared to the use of bottled water which represents a critical figure, despite the resources used in awareness-raising activities. In the coming years it will also be appropriate to focus on the theme of decarbonisation, on which Gruppo Cap has defined its targets in line with the indications of SBTi which confirmed the solidity of the objectives of the Lombard utility. As regards, instead, the reduction of water losses, Gruppo Cap is in line with the objectives set but has not yet reached the target of 15% set for 2033. Furthermore, the green utility looks to European best practices such as Germany, which already in 2001 recorded a share of water losses of 7%.
