Sustainability

Towards carbon neutrality

We aimto achieve Carbon Neutrality by 2025

This is an ambitious goal, which confirms the commitment of the entire company to fight climate change and reduce the environmental impact generated by our activieties. With 100% electricity from certified renewable sources by 2020.

This means that, thanks to the actions outlined in our Sustainability Plan, we will be able to neutralise our CO₂ emissions, generating a positive impact on our planet.

Carbon neutral

By 2025, with a 25-year advance on European regulations.

100%

Electrical energy from renewable sources since 2020.

Carbon Neutrality and the European Market

The European Union has developed a long-term strategy named the Green Deal, which aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 through the creation of an economy with net greenhouse gas emissions equal to zero.

By ‘carbon neutrality’, we mean the result of a balance between generated and reabsorbed greenhouse gas emissions. This is the final outcome of a quantification, reduction, and compensation process in CO₂ and greenhouse gas emissions.

Becoming carbon neutral means taking responsibility for our carbon footprint, and choosing to lessen or erase the impact of our activities on both the climate and the planet.

Initiatives and Interventions

To reduce and contain the company’s CO₂ emissions, we use renewable electrical energy and reduce our consumption to the minimum. We use state-of-the-art technological assets and give absolute priority to maintenance investments with environmental benefits. Substantially, we replace obsolete and energy-consuming transmission systems and equipment with new-generation, low-consumption devices.

In 2023, we have invested more than 100 million Euros in the development of an energetically advanced network within our re-farming project.

Direct energy consumption is mainly caused by the movement of people, the heating of systems and equipment, and the function of electrogenic emergency groups which, using energy vectors based on fossil fuels, produce CO₂ emissions.

Indirect energy consumption refers, instead, to the electrical energy acquired, and represents the most significant quota of total energy consumption. These are attributable mainly to the function of signal broadcasting and transmission systems and equipment. In this case, the CO₂ emissions have been well-contained over the past few years: since 2017, we have adhered to the Consip Convention for energy supply from renewable sources, with an origin guarantee certification which has allowed us to fulfil an increasing quota of our renewable energy requirement. In 2020, we achieved a quota of 100%, which consequently cut our CO₂ emissions down to zero.

Our Journey to Carbon Neutrality

In order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025, we have outlined a detailed plan with multiple stages:

100% RENEWABLE SOURCES

Confirmation of objective for 100% supply of electrical energy from renewable sources.

REDUCTION OF DIRECT EMISSIONS

Application of initiatives to reduce direct CO₂ emissions, identified following a refinement of the current monitoring system (e.g. reduction of consumption, purchasing of hybrid and electric cars).

COMPENSATION OF EMISSIONS

Compensation of residual emissions by purchasing carbon credits.

Rai Way S.p.A. Joins CDP for the First Time

CDP is an international nonprofit organisation which provides businesses, local authorities, governments, and investors with a global environmental measuring and reporting system. The system aims to guide these entities in reducing their environmental impact. In 2020, as part of a wider engagement initiative launched alongside the main ESG rating companies, we participated for the first time in the Climate Change Questionnaire promoted by CDP, receiving the certification for commitment to disclosing environmental impact. This was a fundamental starting point for the implementation of our strategy in monitoring and reducing our energy consumption and our CO₂ emissions. This strategy is outlined in our Sustainability Plan.

With these initiatives, we are diffusing a long-term culture of care towards the environment, instigating conscious energy usage behaviours both within Rai Way and for our stakeholders. This commitment is reflected in our action plan for the efficient management of energy resources, hydro resources, and waste; this creates, therefore, a circular economy which aims to monitor and reduce our ecological impact.

In 2023, Rai Way made a significant leap in its score for ‘A – Leadership’.

Insights

Learn more about our commitment in our Non-Financial Declaration

Find out the details of our environmental performance

We intend to achieve the Green Deal objectives 25 years earlier than the regulations established by the European Union.