Poste Italiane is increasingly green and attentive to the needs of communities. Its achievements were also recognised by Fortune, which recently included it in the Change the World – 2022 ranking, a list that looks at the social impact and sustainability of companies. An article in Fortune Italia recounts the reasons for Poste’s inclusion in the ranking, highlighting its transformation towards a green company and its social commitment.
Poste Italiane in figures
Today, the company is the largest integrated, omni-channel service platform in Italy, with around 121,000 employees, almost 12,800 post offices, and 35 million customers, the article states. It is active in logistics, mail and parcels, financial and insurance services, and payment systems. In 2021, e-wallets reached 9.1 million, with growth of 23.4% compared to 2020, becoming 9.9 million at the end of the first half of 2022. And its market share in the payments sector has increased further, with the recent acquisition, via PostePay, of the paytech LIS, and the investment in the Italian buy now pay later unicorn, Scalapay. Poste Italiane now -boasts an integrated physical and digital network that is unrivalled in terms of availability, proximity, and ease of use’, says Poste Italiane CEO Matteo Del Fante.
A sustainable business
The card that earned Poste entry into Change the world, Fortune’s list of 54 companies that are changing the world is sustainability. From green deliveries and digitalisation to targets on renewables and zero emissions, Poste Italiane’s sustainability plans commit one third of the investments (from €3.1 billion) of its 2024 Sustain & Innovate Plus business plan. According to Del Fante, Poste’s plan ‘aims to achieve responsible growth, accompanying Italy on its path to sustainability and social integrity, with a strategy that is fully aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals’. The results do not stop at Change the World. ‘The company has entered the world’s most prestigious industry indices and has been certified by the best rating agencies in almost all areas of sustainable comparison’, explains Poste Italiane’s Co-General Manager, Giuseppe Lasco, quoted by Fortune. ‘The Group is increasingly successfully integrating the management of ESG risks and opportunities into the business with the aim of overcoming the challenges posed by the current national and international scenario’.
Poste’s objectives
As reiterated by Fortune Italia, there are two goals for Poste Italiane to keep in mind: achieving carbon neutrality by 2030 and obtaining 98% of its electricity from renewables. How? When it comes to renewables, the resource to be exploited are company buildings, which Poste will cover with photovoltaic panels, also with the help of financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB). Systems with an average output of 30 kWp are planned to be installed on hundreds of buildings. But an important part of Poste’s plans is to decrease its carbon footprint. This is why the company is committed to replacing its entire vehicle fleet with new-generation models with low-emission electric, hybrid, and endothermic propulsion, a strategy that even Fortune emphasised in its Change the World. The goal is to reach 28,000 environmentally-friendly vehicles, thus lowering polluting emissions by 40%. In addition, the new green fleet will generate €25 million in value for the community (True Value) compared to the traditional fleet during its total period of operation.
The Polis project
The pages of Fortune Italia also featured the Polis project, which has just been given the green light by the European Commission and which, according to the article’s authors, is perhaps also the one that best sums up the Italian giant’s vision. ‘With the Polis Project, Poste Italiane will help bridge the infrastructure gap that is still too wide between small towns and large cities’. The aim, explains Co-General Manager Giuseppe Lasco, ‘is to give these areas a central role and create the basis for the post office to remain in operation at all times, without anyone thinking that one day it could be closed. When we bring the services of the public administration into that post office, we give them public validity. This is perhaps the key element’. In fact, the project is dedicated to municipalities with fewer than 15,000 residents and aims to set up a one-stop shop, managed by Poste, from which several public administration services can be accessed through a single integrated channel. The project, financed by the NRRP, is worth €800. According to the NRRP, €125 million have been earmarked for this year and a further €145 million for 2023, over €162 million for 2024, up to a peak of €245 million in 2025 and then again over €122 million in 2026. The same project will also make it possible to make use of approximately 250 co-working spaces in Poste Italiane’s premises.
