Stakeholders relations

Easy, the Group’s intranet, is a “digital workplace” that provides information and serves as a tool to increase awareness for employees. The portal was updated thanks to the Agile re-design project and was released in July 2020: during the emergency, Easy became a meeting place for all of Snam’s people, allowing them to exchange thoughts, receive useful information and stay constantly up to date.

Webinars are tools used by Snam to provide training and offer information, during which employees can interact with each other. Of those with the highest attendance, worthy of special note were the medical/scientific webinar with Professor Burioni to support responsible pandemic prevention and containment actions and that held by the CEO to present the Strategic Plan.

Workshops are tools that make it possible to bring working groups together to discuss specific issues in an interactive manner. For example, using this tool Snam worked with employees to assess sustainability issues significant to the Group, with the goal of updating the materiality matrix.

Videomessages update employees about Group initiatives and decisions, providing useful information on daily operations and raising awareness about relevant issues. Snam sent seven videomessages to provide updates and information about the pandemic recorded by the CEO and another message recorded by Giovanni Albano, a Humanitas doctor working in Covid-19 departments.

Communication with national and local unions is constant: during the year 155 remote meetings were carried out to analyse business evolution projects, define productivity and profitability indicators for the 2020 profit-sharing premium and to establish smartworking methods that guarantee protection of worker’s rights.

Every year Snam organises numerous initiatives to increase employee involvement. This year these activities were fundamental in strengthening a sense of community and closeness.

• #Distantimauniti (Separate but united): an internal engagement initiative carried out to strengthen listening and involvement activities during the pandemic.
• “Diamo forma al futuro” (Let’s shape the future): supported the design and promotion of the charity drive, in cooperation with Fondazione Snam.
• Support initiatives for colleagues and families: Covid-19 insurance policy, healthcare assistance services, blood/swab test campaigns, smart-working support (smart kit, data SIM cars and tethering service), Covid-response welfare offering packages.
• Snamwood: a reforestation and environmental project, intended to plant over 3,300 trees, dedicated to all Snam employees, in cooperation with Arbolia. An online contest allowed those participating to vote on the name of the forest to be created.

Active since 2013, this contains Snam’s procurement policy and provides an additional contribution to the transparency, traceability and completeness of the information provided to current and potential suppliers. As of 31 December 2020, 2,275 suppliers were registered, with very active participation.

Suppliers are constantly involved and kept up to date about Snam’s strategies and projects through questionnaires and online workshops. In particular, the central themes of 2020 were climate change and awareness of ESG issues.

Client workshops represent an opportunity to meet and exchange opinions to learn more about relevant market issues, as well as to discuss innovations and operating trends for balancing and transportation, storage, and regasification. The year ended with three commercial workshops on the issues of transportation, balancing, storage and regasification and on Ten Year Plans, with four co-design workshops for the Jarvis project to ensure the design is in line with client expectations and a workshop on evaluating sustainability issues.

Customer satisfaction surveys sent to shippers and traders and extended to Snam’s core business activities (83.6% participation rate for 2020, with an average satisfaction score of 8.6 out of 10).

Snam works in close contact with its business partners, with which it establishes partnerships, agreements and Memorandums of Understanding of strategic importance for developing business. The main agreements signed during the year were related to the creation of infrastructure, research, and feasibility studies in the context of new business for the energy transition.

Snam continued to promote dialogue with shareholders and institutional investors thanks to 10 roadshows held virtually in the largest European and North American financial centres, making it possible to meet 345 investors (of which 140 ESG), an increase of 18% with respect to the previous year.

Snam participated in 15 sector conferences aimed at investors specialising in the utilities and infrastructure sector in order to create an opportunities for meetings and communications between these investors and Snam top management.

Involvement with schools mainly occurs through ad hoc projects, such as:

• Young Energy, a project aimed at fostering student orientation and bringing them closer to the world of work through initiatives focused on corporate business.
• With the School, a project established by Snam in cooperation with LUISS Business School and the Elis Consortium, intended to strengthen the link between schools and business, contributing to the renewal and evolution of the school as an organisation.

Snam, also through Fondazione Snam, is committed to involving local communities through initiatives in certain priority sectors such as environmental protection, educational poverty and gender equality.
Involvement of local communities also occurs through employee engagement, in which Snam employees dedicate their own time to Foundation activities that support local communities.

Snam believes it is fundamental to maintain constant relations with national, regional and local administrations to ensure required information is provided about company activities, support the acceptability of local plants and to present requests to obtain the authorisations needed to build new infrastructure. In 2020, 50 meetings with mayors were held in municipalities involved in Group activities, as well as 2 meetings with local agricultural associations.

Snam maintains its relationship with Autorità di Regolazione per Energia Reti e Ambiente (ARERA), organising meetings and task forces, responding to consultation documents and proposals, collecting data and carrying out continuous monitoring of its actions with respect to directives issued by the Authority.

In recent years, Snam has strengthened its digital engagement by offering all stakeholders digital communication which is transparent, timely and accurate. This allowed the Group to be included, with a score of 91.4 out of 100, in the Webranking awards, a classification issued by Lundquist, in cooperation with the Swedish company Comprend.

Snam has adopted an integrated communication style, using both traditional and digital channels, with modern language able to emphasise its commitment to sustainability. Among its other communication initiatives, Snam has created:

• Snamcast – Talks to inspire the world: an eight episode podcast that speaks to sustainability-related issues, including new energy sources, energy efficiency and savings, the circular economy and many other ideas to create a new future.
• Snam Talks: a six-episode video series, which presents projects and ideas for a more sustainable future through the stories of men and women coming from various paths, cultures, and professions.
• Influencer marketing campaign with the “Il Milanese imbruttito”, to disseminate information about the advantages offered by natural gas-based mobility.

Snam works in close contact with other sector operators, above all to create an integrated European network and continue development of market-oriented services. In Europe, Snam actively participates in task and research groups on the role of gas in the future energy mix and on how new renewable energy vectors can help support the energy transition process. In this sense, Snam is part of the following associations, among others:

• EU Clean Hydrogen Alliance, an alliance begun at the European level to achieve the objectives of the Green Deal, eliminating net CO₂ emissions by 2050, also thanks to the support of hydrogen.
• Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP) 2.0, organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
• CEO Action Group, joint declaration by the World Economic Forum to support the Green Deal as a growth strategy for Europe, with an eye to post Covid-19 recovery on the path to net-zero emissions, based on circularity, renewable energy and low carbon industry.
• Sustainability Alliance, an ecosystem project, in cooperation with growITup (an Open Innovation platform created by Cariplo Factory in partnership with Microsoft Italia), to promote sustainable growth in Italy through digital tools.
• European Gas Research Group (GERG), a European research group that develops research and innovation projects for European natural gas transporters. In 2020, Snam participated in the project to identify and measure natural gas emissions linked the gas transportation system.
• European Pipeline Research Group (EPRG), a research association focussing on issues relative to pipelines, made up of the main gas transportation companies and pipeline producers in Europe. Through EPRG, in 2020 Snam studied the behaviour of steel used in existing gas pipelines after injection of hydrogen.