Rome, July 25th, 2022 - Enel X, the Enel Group company dedicated to innovative products and services, today made available the second edition of the Circular Economy Factbook 2021/2022 in which it has collected and illustrated the circular initiatives, projects and solutions it has pursued over the past two years. The document describes Enel X’s role in accelerating and implementing circularity, not only internally, but also within its entire surrounding ecosystem of partners and customers.
“The Circular Economy is one of the enablers of electrification, which is capable of reimagining and reconfiguring traditional business processes and models in a sustainable way,” commented Francesco Venturini, CEO of Enel X. “For this reason, by involving suppliers, end customers, companies and public administrations, Enel X is seeking to foster a virtuous mechanism capable of generating shared value for all on the one hand and promoting investment in increasingly sustainable and innovative solutions on the other.”
As described in the Factbook, Enel X’s challenge for circularity starts with the Enel X Circular Economy Boosting Program®, a broad-based approach that starts out by measuring the level of circularity of the individual solutions in the portfolio and then, along the entire value chain, identifies those ideas, strategies, business models, technological innovations and partnerships with start-ups that can make them more sustainable. Once the feasibility studies have been completed, we then move on to the implementation of the identified innovative projects and a rescoring of the solution to certify its improvement in terms of the level of circularity.
To date, 23 boosting programs have been implemented on a global scale, spread across Italy, Spain, North America and Latin America, in particular Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia.
Two of the solutions identified by Enel X are described in the Factbook, the Circular Economy Report and the GHG Report. Using these tools, the company is able to provide its customers, including companies and public administrations, with a roadmap of circular technological solutions and innovations immediately available on the market, starting with an analysis of the current performance and supporting the customer from the design stages through to the execution of the works.
In 2021, more than 50 companies in Italy with more than 160 plants, belonging to different commodity sectors, including Genagricola, Inalca and DOpla, were involved in the realization of the Circular Economy Report, for which a potential saving in terms of CO2 was calculated as 17,000 tons as a result of the solutions proposed by Enel X.
The Circular Economy Report is the measurement tool officially used by Confindustria for the Best Performer of the Circular Economy AMa-DIH 2 (Managerial Support to Digital Innovation Hubs) project, an active labor policy project involving 50 managers within the network of national Digital Innovation Hubs (DIH) belonging to the Confindustria System with the aim of promoting digitalization 4.0 and sustainable transition paths within their companies. It was also used by some companies from the Monitor for Circular Fashion: in 2021, Enel X took part in the first edition of the project, a research observatory of SDA Bocconi School of Management. A representative cross-section of the Italian fashion industry along the entire supply chain was involved in the project (participants include 2021 OVS, ICA Yams, Manteco, Vitale Barberis Canonico, Vibram, Candiani Denim, Oscalito among others) with the aim of mapping and analyzing the dynamics and trends of the sector over the next 5 and 10 years. Enel X has made its know-how available to the SDA Bocconi Monitor for Circular Fashion and the partner companies in the research project by providing its measurement and analysis methodologies on Circular Economy and Sustainability issues, as well as its technical expertise to guide companies along the path of energy transition.
Furthermore, between 2020 and 2022, the calculation models underlying the Circular Economy Report were reviewed and validated by technical partners such as ICMQ and CESI, with the aim of developing certification schemes, which will then be available to all those companies on the market that wish to certify themselves. In June 2022, the process was successfully concluded at ACCREDIA, the sole accreditation body in Italy.
One interesting example of a circular initiative is PIONEER (airPort sustaInability secONd lifE battERy storage), a project created in collaboration with Aeroporti di Roma, and winner of a European call for tender with adjudication of a loan by the Innovation Fund. The objective is to use second-life batteries to store the surplus energy produced during the day by the photovoltaic solar system located in the airport facilities, and then use it during the evening hours when there is a need to cover peak energy demand. With a nominal capacity of 5 MW/10 MWh, it is one of the first projects worldwide to reach this size.
Lastly, the Factbook also reports on Enel X’s commitment to developing and applying the principles of “social inclusion” in its activities and solutions, with the aim of improving the ways in which people living in economically and socially vulnerable conditions are able to participate in social life, aiming to create shared value for business, communities and all stakeholders.
About Enel X Global Retail
Enel X Global Retail is the Enel Group’s global business line active in the areas of energy supply and efficiency. As a global leader in the development of innovative solutions to support the energy transition, Enel X Global Retail provides consumers, businesses and cities with a modular and integrated offer built around customer needs, promoting electrification and digitalization as drivers for creating new value. Enel X Global Retail manages demand response services, with 6.7 GW in total capacity, has installed more than 2.8 million lights for public lighting around the world, and offers energy services to 62 million residential customers every day as a Commodity. Enel X Global Retail’s ecosystem of solutions includes assets for the optimization and self-production of energy, premium solutions for energy efficiency, and competitive and flexible energy offers, with the end goal of helping customers develop their own energy roadmaps.
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