They were signed by Catia Bastioli, President of Terna, Rossella Muroni, President of Legambiente, Donatella Bianchi, President of WWF Italy and Andrea Purgatori, President of Greenpeace Italy, the Memoranda of Understanding to promote all the initiatives necessary to spread and increase the culture of sustainability in the energy field.
The agreements have the objective of a close collaboration aimed at the progressive improvement of the environmental sustainability of the National Electricity Grid Development Plan. In particular, with the signing of these agreements, Terna and the three environmental associations undertake to collaborate both at a strategic level in the drafting phase of the Development Plan of the National Electricity Grid, both at a structural level in the preparation of the Strategic Environmental Assessment, and at an implementation level in the consultation with the territory to identify the most compatible location choices.
This cooperation strategy will therefore develop in the following specific activities:
1. Subscription strategic (drafting of Terna's Development Plan) with a comparison to evaluate future energy scenarios, identify electricity grid development strategies, in relation to the environmental objectives defined at national and European level and to publicly discuss the energy scenario to 2030 and 2050, in Italy and in Europe, following the COP21 in Paris.
2. Subscription structural (Strategic Environmental Assessment) to evaluate the socio-environmental context of the areas affected by the interventions envisaged by the Development Plan and identify the environmental corridors relating to the works to be carried out.
3. Subscription implementing (design of the work and comparison with the territory) to collaborate in the definition of the feasibility bands of the routes of the new power lines and of the environmental contents for consultation with local authorities, to minimize interference with priority natural areas, to mitigate impacts relating to development interventions interfering with or adjacent to priority natural areas and for the implementation of environmental restoration measures.
“Terna wants to continue making its contribution to more sustainable development, also by rethinking grid development towards a model that combines the environment, society and electricity needs,” he said. Catia Bastioli, President of Terna. This is why it is necessary to constantly seek a constructive dialogue with the various interlocutors, thinking of development models capable of adequately enhancing the natural and social capital. This means placing oneself in a position to intercept the opportunities linked to the energy revolution underway, becoming protagonists of change in a context in which attention to the environment is increasingly becoming a strategic lever for the growth of companies. The agreement we signed with WWF, Legambiente and Greenpeace, authoritative environmental associations, goes exactly in this direction”.
“The future of energy passes through a new model centered on renewable sources and increasingly distributed and efficient – declared Rossella Muroni, President of Legambiente. In this transition we need investments in local energy transmission and distribution networks, to better manage the growth of clean energy production. In this context, the agreement with Terna is important because it allows us to discuss strategies concerning the grid and interventions in the territories to minimize the impact on the landscape and ecosystems”.
“For WWF, discussions with companies represent a significant area of intervention in conservation strategies – declared Donatella Bianchi, President of WWF Italy. Precisely from this point of view, the agreement with Terna represents an important case because it is aimed at a more sustainable development of the grid, with the aim of protecting our country's great biodiversity heritage. For the WWF, this agreement has a double objective: on the one hand, to focus attention on environmental issues upstream of industrial choices and on the other, to be able to imagine an increasingly functional network for the development of renewable sources”.
“For Greenpeace, the evolution towards an energy scenario based mainly on renewables puts the infrastructures of the electricity system at the center and, therefore, also the transmission grid – said Giuseppe Onufrio, Executive Director of Greenpeace Italy. There has been discussions with Terna for years that will have a specific focus in the coming months on the new business plan”.
