Alperia and the 2030 Agenda

We promote a healthy and safe working environment and are committed to reducing pollution through our products and services.

Actions:

• Halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents.

We work to encourage the use of public transport and/or bicycles and/or scooters. We monitor accidents and injuries that may occur at our plants and offer safe driving courses for operational staff.

• Achieve universal health coverage by extending access to healthcare services and good quality medicines.

We provide our employees with supplementary health insurance and have developed a prototype for nursing care for patients in residential care and clinics.

• By 2030, reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from air, water and soil pollution and contamination.

We are working to reduce emissions, cut CO₂ and greenhouse gases, produce clean heat with district heating and reduce energy waste. We have already achieved carbon neutrality for operational emissions, now we want to achieve NET ZERO by reducing our scope 3 emissions.

We are striving for gender equality and female empowerment.

Actions:

• Recognise and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies, and the promotion of shared responsibility within the family as nationally appropriate.

We want to be a family-friendly company with an “audit familiaelavoro” certification (family and work audit) awarded by the Family Agency of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano. Some of the tools we adopt are reduced and flexible working hours for managerial positions, equal parental leave for mothers and fathers and actions to support female and male parenting.

• Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life.

We encourage women's empowerment and professional growth by offering tailored training paths. With the aim of achieving equal opportunities in all activities, we invest in collaboration with universities and local secondary schools and colleges to attract more and more women, including into technical professions. We also want to make recruiters and top management aware of the gender pay gap.

We optimise water network management, reduce the impact of our activities and work to protect the aquatic environment.

Actions:

• By 2030, implement integrated water resources management at all levels, including transboundary cooperation as appropriate.

We have implemented several initiatives to listen to local communities, with the aim of involving them in the management of water resources. As a result of these meetings several agreements have been put in place, such as the provision of water stocks to protect orchards from night frosts during the spring flowering period and the establishment of precise criteria to identify possible criticalities linked to climatic risks.

• Protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes.

We want to minimise the impact of our hydroelectric power plants on nature and the environment, actively protecting the biological diversity of waterways. We have adopted various measures to reduce the impact of hydroelectric plants on the environment: we built fish ladders, implemented sediment management programmes, and carried out renaturation and restoration of the original landscape in the presence of decommissioned plants.

We ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy systems.

Actions:

• By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services.

We want to ensure a secure and efficient energy supply, which is why we are investing in the development of sustainable energy solutions and the modernisation of our plants and grids.

• By 2030, substantially increase the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.

We aim to produce our energy primarily from renewable sources (we are already at 95 % today), while also involving our suppliers in sustainable procurement. We want to increase this percentage through: targeted investments, the adoption of new business models, services and products, such as Green Gas, in order to help our customers to be more energy efficient, monitoring and reporting on the amount of energy produced, purchased and consumed from each source. In addition, we want to be a partner for the energy transition of our stakeholders by offering specific consulting services.

• By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency.

We want to make our energy consumption more efficient. Therefore, we are reducing the energy consumption of our buildings and plants through specific measures. In 2021 Alperia started its path towards ISO 50001 certification, through a pilot project on two production sites (Ponte Gardena hydroelectric power plant and Bolzano district heating) to make energy management consistent and reduce emissions. We are also developing new technologies and services that will further improve energy efficiency and reduce energy needs, and we are developing new products, services and business to help our customers reduce their own energy needs and improve their efficiency.

We promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth and decent and secure employment.

Actions: 

• By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value.

We have harmonised the Alperia Group's union agreements and HR policies to provide uniform and fair framework conditions for all our employees.

• Substantially reduce the proportion of youth that is neither employed nor undergoing education or training.

We want to support our employees in their development. To support the generational transition, we are developing policies aiming at attracting and training new staff in order to facilitate knowledge-sharing within the company.

• Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers: this includes all migrant workers, women in particular, and those in precarious employment.

We actively promote the health of our employees, guaranteeing the highest level of work safety to protect our staff, the general population, and the surrounding areas. We adopt plant monitoring and maintenance measures, promoting wellness initiatives in all our workplaces. We have installed thirty Red Cross and White Cross semi-automatic defibrillators that will be used both inside and outside of Alperia workplaces and at some customer sites.

We build and maintain safe and resilient infrastructures, foster innovation and support equitable, responsible and sustainable development.

Actions:

• Develop high-quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, to support economic development and human wellbeing, with a focus on affordable and equitable access for all.

We have decommissioned unreliable MV and LV lines and are using fibre optics for greater reliability in plant control. We have initiated specific smart cities and e-mobility plans and are building new offices in via Claudia Augusta in Bolzano. In addition, we intend to further improve the quality and efficiency of our one-stop hotline and are developing and testing phase change tanks for thermal energy and refrigeration storage.

• By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally friendly technologies. upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies.

We want to ensure a secure and efficient energy supply. We do this by developing increasingly modern distribution grids, maintaining and upgrading our infrastructure (plants, networks, buildings) to make it more resilient and sustainable.

• Enhance scientific research, upgrade the technological capabilities of industrial sectors in all countries, encouraging by 2030 innovation and substantially increasing the number of research and development workers.

We want to actively contribute to the energy future and develop new technological solutions with innovative research projects. Our Innovation Board works to develop innovative sustainability-oriented projects and we support innovation-related projects such as the Alperia Startup Factory.

We want to make cities more inclusive, safer and more energy efficient.

Actions:

• By 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management.

With Smart Region, Alperia is dedicated to creating a sustainable, integrated and efficient community through the implementation of high-tech initiatives, such as the energy efficiency of buildings, the development of domestic photovoltaics (Alperia myHome), facility management for the PA and the development of sustainable mobility. The following activities are also being continued: the sustainable expansion of district heating networks; the Smart Land project, investments in green mobility and the Regalgrid project dedicated to energy communities.

We promote sustainable patterns of production and consumption.

Actions:

• Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle.

We have anchored environmental, social and economic sustainability to our governance and management processes. We have set up a sustainability plan and integrated at least one sustainability objective into the Management by Objectives (MBO) scheme for group executives and put sustainability at the heart of the new Strategic Plan, linking it to the UN SDGs.

• Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable in accordance with national policies and priorities.

We want to make our procurement as local, environmentally sound and socially sustainable as possible. We define minimum ecological and social requirements in tenders and supplier selection.

We take specific action to combat climate change and its consequences.

Actions: 

• Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries; integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning; improve education, awareness raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation,

• adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning

We have set a goal, after achieving carbon neutrality for emissions from operations (Scope 1 and 2) in 2020, to further improve our Scope 3 emissions to accelerate the path to Net Zero. We have signed up to the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), an initiative that promotes greenhouse gas reductions based on scientifically calculated targets. We assess and update our risks based on climate change, invest in the production and use of products with lower greenhouse gas emissions and promote the development of e-mobility solutions.

We ensure the conservation of ecosystems and the protection of biodiversity including through the use of innovative technologies.

Actions:

• ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services; by 2030, ensure the conservation of mountain ecosystems, including their biodiversity, in order to enhance their capacity to provide benefits essential for sustainable development; take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and, by 2020, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species; promote fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic resources and appropriate access to genetic resources as agreed at international level.

We strive to protect the environment and its biodiversity in compliance with the compensation measures laid down by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano. For this reason, we carry out various activities to consolidate fish stocks, build ladders for fish in intake works, improve watercourses, and oversee the monitoring and management of Minimum Vital Flow. In addition, we have begun to implement measures to promote sustainable water use in collaboration with local farmers and municipalities.