What will living conditions on Earth be like in the future? Everything depends on the choices being made as of today and how those commitments will be maintained over time.

Aware of this reality and of its role as an enabler of sustainability, last July Hera made a formal commitment to reach Net Zero in terms of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, being the first to have taken up that challenge among Italian multi-utilities.

The Group made this move by presenting an ambitious Climate Transition Plan, in which it aims to achieve a 90 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050 compared to 2019 and to remove all remaining emissions at the end of the decarbonisation path. Through a series of well-identified actions, Hera has charted a roadmap that follows the trajectory drawn by science to limit global warming. In particular, Hera’s path is aligned with the directions of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which calls for a reduction within the 1.5 °C threshold at the end of the century compared to the average temperature level of the pre-industrial era.

The pathway to Net Zero is also consistent with the decarbonisation targets that the Hera Group had already set for 2030, which envisage a 37% cut in emissions over 2019 – a reduction validated by the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi).

The Climate Transition Plan is deeply integrated with the Group’s strategy. It also offers a valuable contribution to the concrete achievement of Hera’s corporate purpose: indeed, stakeholders are active participants in the reduction of emissions and, in turn, beneficiaries of the Shared Value that will be created while aiming at a sustainable future.

The first step: hitting the target in the short to medium term

Overall emissions to decrease by 37% in 2030 vs 2019

The Climate Transition Plan sets out a rolling path, with a short- to medium-term target to 2030, validated in 2021 by SBTi and compatible with a “well below 2°C” ambition level.

Such 2030 target includes both Group (Scope 1 and 2) and customer (Scope 3) emissions from electricity and gas sales.

Hera has launched a series of initiatives to reduce emissions that are directly under their control, while taking into account the expected evolution of the external scenario, which will lead to a progressive decarbonisation of electricity production, greater energy efficiency and the increasing electrification of consumption, with green gases gaining more and more weight in the energy mix.

Nearly 12 million tonnes of CO2: this was the starting point for 2019, with gas and electricity sales accounting for more than 90 per cent of it

In 2019, Group emissions included in the scope of the SBTi target amounted to 11.8 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, representing 86.5% of total emissions, which were close to 13.6 million. Direct emissions (Scope 1) were approximately 1.1 million tonnes while those indirect, deriving from energy consumption (Scope 3), were approximately 48,000 tonnes. Indirect emissions from methane gas sale (Scope 3) were the weightiest item, around 6.3 million tonnes, followed by those coming from the sale of electricity (Scope 3 upstream), which stood at about 4.4 million tonnes.

Hera has already achieved significant results – evidence that the planned interventions are well focused

In 2023, the Hera’s emissions included in the scope of the SBTi target had already decreased by 14% over 2019.

More in detail, Scope 1 and 2 emissions declined by 17% mainly due to:

• purchases of only renewable electricity to meet in-house consumption,
• the reduction of emissions from waste treatment plants, fostered by the installation of carbon capture and storage technologies
• and the lower leakages in the gas network made possible by predictive maintenance.

The 15% reduction recorded in Scope 3 emissions has been mostly driven by:

• lower gas sales due to mild temperatures,
• benefits from the energy efficiency works
• and more responsible consumption behaviour by customers, also due to the energy-saving solutions that Hera installed at their premises.

Lastly, the 24% fall in the carbon intensity index of electricity sold leveraged the increasing use of renewable energies, which reached 43% of total volumes in 2023.

The road to the 2050 target is still long and challenging, but has great credibility

Total emissions to decline by 90% in 2050 compared to 2019

The achievements already recorded, with a significant reduction in emissions over the 2019-2023 period, provide visibility not only for the 2030 target, but also for that for 2050: the direction taken is the right one, and the initiatives launched have already shown that they are delivering the expected results.

Over time, the spreading of the trend of electrification of consumption and the deployment of new technologies, particularly in the field of carbon capture and storage, will give additional strength to the initiatives already in place. A good example is the recent project that will be launched in Ferrara – the first in Italy designed to be applied to Waste-to-Energy plants and among the earliest in Europe – which will capture around 90 per cent of the emissions from one of the two plant lines, or 64,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. Through the application of Bluenzyme technology, it will be possible to capture the carbon dioxide leaving the plant’s chimneys and store it in the depleted natural gas fields of the Adriatic Sea.

Therefore, Hera feels confident in being able to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions and Scope 3 emissions from gas and electricity sales by 90%, compared to the 2019 baseline.

On the other hand, in the Climate Transition Plan, regarding indirect Scope 2 emissions, Hera has committed to continue to use only certified renewable electricity to meet internal consumption in the future.

Scope 3 emissions from customers to whom Hera supplies gas or electricity are expected to decrease from 3.3 tonnes CO2 equivalent in 2019 to less than 0.2 tonnes in 2050.

Hera expects to reach 2050 with some emissions that cannot be further abated, despite its willingness to activate all possible internal decarbonisation levers and even though the external scenario is expected to contribute positively. To neutralise this non-abateable amount, the Group plans to use instruments to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that will offset the remaining amounts. In this way, it would be possible to have effectively zero net emissions.

A commitment that goes beyond the borders of Hera Group

Net Zero is not just a corporate goal,
but a shared responsibility: climate transition requires joint action,
with companies, institutions and citizens working together.

Hera naturally positions itself as the enabler of the energy transition in its territories. The services that Hera offers as well as the solutions that the Group has developed are essential tools enabling stakeholders to undertake their own decarbonisation path. For this reason, Hera is committed to spreading its corporate culture, promoting informed choices and coordinating the efforts of citizens, customers, suppliers and partners, thus achieving concrete and long-term results, to the benefit of the communities served.

In this same spirit, Hera’s management collaborates with organisations with a focus on the issues of energy transition, taking part in the national and international debate.

Moreover, in delivering the Climate Transition Plan, Hera will continue to promote an actively engagement of local communities through initiatives such as those provided by the HeraLAB programme, whose next editions will concentrate specifically on carbon neutrality, with a focus on energy efficiency, renewables and new energy sharing models.