Mundys, the ways to achieve zero emissions

Katia Riva, head of sustainability at Mundys, you have set yourself the goal of reducing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions to zero by 2040. How do you plan to achieve it?
“We have identified as many as 150 different ways, which we call runways, to arrive at the result both in Mundys and in all its subsidiaries, namely the Rome and Côte d’Azur airports, the Abertis motorways and those controlled directly in Chile , Mexico and Brazil, the mobility of Yunex, Telepass and so on. The first track is the passage of the energy supply to renewable sources, which represents 29% of our emissions. Each objective must be sustainable both from the point of view of sustainability environmental, but also of the economic and social one”.

Can you give me some examples?
“In Adr we will shut down the gas-fired plant that supplies Fiumicino, making a major investment in a solar farm, with a capacity of 60 Mwh. On the motorways, for example, we started from tunnels in Spain, which are the most energy-intensive stretches, inserting panels at the beginning and end of the tunnels, we are gradually changing the lighting to LEDs for the rest of the network. We are also planning to replace our entire fleet of light and medium-sized vehicles with electric vehicles, and towards biofuel and then hydrogen”.

You have already approved a 10.4 billion 2027 plan, can you tell me how many resources are dedicated to sustainability?
“We don’t have a precise cross-section because all the investments are also designed in a sustainable key. Some operations we are carrying out, such as the free flow arches in France as an alternative to toll booths so as not to block traffic, are considered technological investments even if in reality they have the goal of reducing emissions and waste, increasing safety with smoother traffic”.

So isn’t there a way to quantify the economic benefit that being more sustainable gives you?
“We have just calculated that between 2015 and 2022, every million EBITDA contributed to generating 43% less emissions: we went from 70 tons for every million mol to 40 tons at the end of 2022”.

Debt has also been refinanced in a green key, isn’t it cheaper to ask for money, assuring investors that you will be more efficient?
“Yes, but that’s not why we’ve made several green sustainability-linked issues, i.e. linked to the achievement of certain objectives. It’s a bigger and more dynamic market, where we want to be present. On average we save 10-15 points on the interest rate an issue of equal duration, but with these bonds we also undertake to achieve certain results, which if we do not achieve them, would cause the interest rate to rise”.

Which tells me instead of the social component, infrastructure is a very masculine sector.
“We have set ourselves a challenging goal, that of reaching 35% of women also in the management team by 2030. We believe that diversity is a value, we have 24,000 employees worldwide and to increase the dialogue we start with selections, which they must always be 50% and 50%.I’m not a fan of women’s quotas, but it is certainly useful to have a target in the plan: our managers are committed to achieving it like any other economic objective, because they are convinced that this is an important value for Mundys”.