Environmental and health and safety aspects

Material topics and risks related to the environment, health and safety

Climate change: as it operates in the energy sector, Snam is aware of its role in the fight against climate change. As outlined in the new Towards Net Zero strategy, the Group sets itself challenging targets in reducing emissions and improving energy efficiency to ensure an ever-smaller impact on climate change. The Company promotes collaborations between energy sector businesses in order to jointly achieve the common goal of carbon neutrality. Snam promotes more sustainable business management through the use and production of energy from renewable sources, with regard to the development of green gases (biomethane and hydrogen).

Green business: Snam has integrated new businesses (biomethane, sustainable mobility, energy efficiency and hydrogen) into its operations, aimed at fostering decarbonisation and positioning Snam as an enabler of the energy transition for Italy as a country.

Health and safety: the safety of its staff is an essential factor that governs Snam’s daily activities, and one that has taken on even greater significance in 2020 following the Covid-19 pandemic. Snam annually monitors current, potential and emerging risks in order to mitigate and prevent accidents in the workplace and the impacts on people’s health.

Protecting the local area and biodiversity: Snam is committed to protecting the biodiversity of the areas it operates in, carrying out its activities efficiently and responsibly and minimising their impact on the environment, particularly during infrastructure construction processes. The landscape and local areas where the Group’s plants and sites are located are safeguarded through inspection and monitoring activities as well as through policies aimed at protecting the soil, subsoil and aquifers.

Air quality protection and the management of waste and water resources are issues that were not categorised as material by the materiality analysis, but are nonetheless supervised by Snam. Concerning air protection, the only significant emissions are nitrogen oxides that derive mainly from the combustion of natural gas in gas turbines installed in the compression plants (thrust and storage). In order to minimise these emissions, a programme has been launched over the years to replace conventional turbines with low-emission turbines (DLE), which, to date, has replaced almost all of the turbines (all our storage sites were run with low-emission units). Water management was not deemed a material topic either as only small quantities of water resources are used, mainly in the operations of the GNL Italia regasification plant and for sanitary and horticultural use. Similarly, waste management was also not categorised as a material topic, considering the limited amount of waste produced by the company’s operations, which for the large part are not dangerous.