Quality of services
For Snam, customer care represents the consolidation of a path through which the Company aims to increase dialogue, engagement, and interaction with customers.
Customer Engagement activities in 2020 were strongly influenced by the emergency situation caused by Covid 19, making it necessary to revise and reorganise them. In keeping with original plans, stakeholder engagement activities were carried out with workshops on issues of transportation, balancing, storage and regasification, and Ten-year Plans, as well as co-design sessions for the Jarvis project, the commercial platform for integrated business services, amounting to a total of 3 commercial workshops and 4 co-design workshops.
In addition, ad-hoc surveys were carried out after each workshop in order to have improved analysis material to measure customer satisfaction. In December 2020 a new online survey was conducted, involving all shippers and traders with whom Snam collaborated in the thermal year 2019-2020 just ended.
Furthermore, as already done in previous years, the Group conduted the Customer Satisfaction questionnaire with the aim of assessing the next developments in the commercial services offered for the transportation, storage and regasification businesses.
The survey participation rate was 83.6%, with an average satisfaction score of 8.6 (on a scale of 0 to 10) for 2020 alone, and 8.2 measured as average over the three-year period, a result that testifies the satisfaction with the customer engagement activities developed by Snam, implemented to improve the services it offers and to consolidate proactive collaboration with all its stakeholders.
The value of brand reputation
During 2020, Snam continued to consolidate its brand identity, reinforcing the company’s positioning on the issues of energy transition and the decarbonisation of local communities.
The aim is to communicate proactively and transparently with all its stakeholders, from the press to the ever larger audience reached through social media and the Group website and the many supervision and dialogue activities conducted with the local communities involved in the main projects. Snam has significantly increased its visibility in recent years. In particular, there has been a more noticeable presence in the international media concerning topics of global interest, first and foremost the energy transition.
Supply chain relations
Snam considers its suppliers to be an essential component of its business model and aims to establishing an ongoing dialogue with them to assess issues of responsibility, sustainable development and the creation of value to be shared throughout the supply chain.
Cooperation with the supply chain to ensure high levels of procurement is an essential point in Snam’s journey towards excellence, as sharing know-how, best practices and information ensures the creation of a common vision.
In accordance with this approach, Snam has involved its suppliers in specific initiatives aimed at surveying their knowledge regarding climate change and mapping in detail the effective sustainable management of their activities.
Snam also continued to engage a selection of its main suppliers, corresponding to 75% of total procurement, in the CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Program) – Supply Chain programme with the aim of collecting their data on greenhouse gas emissions. 60% of the participants responded to the questionnaire (+ 7% compared to 2019).
In the context of the CDP Supply Chain assessment, Snam received a score of A-, which demonstrates its commitment in its engagement activities with suppliers to issues related to the reduction of emissions and the development of sustainable strategies.
Continuous communication with suppliers is facilitated through the Suppliers Portal, a web platform active since 2013, where suppliers can access their reserved area and various documents, published with the aim of keeping them up-to-date on the processes governing qualification and procurement activities. Thanks to the Supply Portal, the Company can implement its procurement policy with absolute transparency, ensuring the traceability and completeness of the information published.
At the end of 2020, there were more than 2,275 suppliers registered on the portal, with 66% accessing the portal more than once per day, a figure which, together with the more than 676,000 pages read, is a testament to the activity and engagement fostered by the website.
Added Value
At Snam, sustainability and value creation are strongly connected concepts. Sustainability creates value for the Company and the stakeholders and establishes a connection between the business and corporate social responsibility. The wealth produced by Snam contributes to the economic growth of the society and environment in which it operates. This wealth is measured in terms of Added Value produced and distributed to its key stakeholders.
Snam calculates the added value based on the standard prepared by the Gruppo di Studio per il Bilancio Sociale (GBS) and the GRI Standards.
In 2020, the gross global Added Value produced by Snam was 2,758 million euros, an increase of 63 million euros or 2.3% compared with 2019 (2,695 million euros).
38.7% of the gross global Added Value produced by Snam was reinvested within the Group (in line compared with 2019, 39.2%), of which around 72.3% was employed for the amortisation of group assets (71.2% in 2019). With regard to the main reference stakeholders, the value distributed to financing bodies fell in 2020 (6.4%; -1.4 percentage points compared with 2019), following a reduction in financial expenditures attributable to the effects of the actions taken to optimise the financial structure between 2016 and 2020, specifically the liability management operations. The value distributed to shareholders through the distribution of dividends increased (29.6%; 28.9% in 2019). With an increasing dividend (+5% compared with 2019), confirmation of the commitment to guarantee shareholders attractive and sustainable remuneration, more than compensating the reduction of the number of outstanding shares following Snam’s buyback programme.
With reference to employees, there was an increase in the Added Value distributed (10.1% or +0.5 percentage points compared with 2019) through direct remuneration consisting of salaries, wages and TFR (employee severance indemnity) and indirect remuneration composed of social security contributions and staff-related service costs (canteen services, reimbursement of travel expenses, welfare). With regard to costs for staff services, against a backdrop of cost containment related to lock-down measures following the Covid-19 health emergency, Snam supported its employees through welfare initiatives, the purchase of protective equipment and health monitoring devices (pulse oximeters), and initiatives to sanitise work environments.
The value allocated to the Public Administration through the payment of direct and indirect taxes is in line with 2019 (14.5% or +0.1% compared with 2019).
Finally, more than 19 million euros was allocated to local communities (0.7% of the value generated; 0.1% in 2019). The significant increase compared to 2019 is proof of Snam’s commitment, also through the Foundation, to support the Italian health system and the third sector in combating the Covid-19 emergency, through donations in kind and money for approximately 16 million euros. This is complemented by sponsorships, donations and environmental offsets made in accordance with the law amounting to a total of approximately 3 million euros (in line with 2019).
During 2020, Snam spent approximately 173 million euros on environmental, health and safety protection (155 million euros on investments and 18 million euros on operating costs).