The Autostrade Group further strengthened its commitment to corporate social responsibility and sustainable development in 2004, continuing the process which has its roots in an increasingly widespread and shared business culture and values, focused on: stakeholders and their legitimate interests; the country and its need for redevelopment and growth; the environment as an asset to be safeguarded; the community with its expectations; and users with their growing demands for safety, comfort and services.

Bearing witness to the commitment to social and environmental issues, the Autostrade Group has published in 2004 its eighth Social and Environmental Report; in order to ensure the methodological correctness, comparability and transparency of the information presented, the Report has again in 2004 been prepared on the basis of the internationally recognised standard developed by the “Global Reporting Initiative”, and has been assured by external independent experts.

In the Report, the Chairman and the Managing Director announce, in the “Letter to stakeholders”, the participation of Autostrade to the Global Compact project; In the chapter “Sustainability vision and strategy”, the Global Compact and its ten principles are fully described.

The Report describes the tools adopted by Autostrade in the last years: the Corporate Governance Code, the Code of ethics, the Code of Conduct for Internal Dealing, the Service Charter and the Code of environmental commitments. It also covers the Committees set up and the organisational units created; the risk, emergency and environmental management systems implemented; the safety initiatives adopted; the Environmental Watchdogs, which are indispensable methods of managing the environmental issues linked to new works.

The Report explains which actions have been undertaken to prevent corruption, to improve employees satisfaction, to protect the environment; it presents a large number of indicators which allow to evaluate the results achieved.

In December 2004 the Board of Directors of Autostrade SpA approved the Autostrade Group’s new Corporate Governance Code, designed to strengthen a corporate governance system that aims at providing the market with the best possible guarantees regarding the efficient management of the Company, and to pursue a constructive dialogue with shareholders, institutional investors and stakeholders in general.

Autostrade doesn’t operate in non “OECD” countries; however, our commitment to the principles in the areas of human rights and labour is expressed in our Code of ethics, which has been distributed to all staff and is also available on Autostrade’s web site. Since 2004, the Code of ethics has been attached to tender, supply and service contracts. The contracts require the supplier to comply with the Group’s Code of ethics.

A particularly important training course was held on the theme of “Ethics and Enterprise”, involving many middle managers from Group companies.
Another key aspect of the policy of dialogue and engagement with people is the document that illustrates the Company’s staff policies, which was developed by an inter-departmental working group in 2003. This document, which is based on the principles of cooperation and professional development, is being distributed to all members of staff.

Regarding the environment, the most relevant actions undertaken in 2004 were:

o Start up of the activities of the Environmental and Social Responsibility Committee, set up by the Autostrade Group with a view to establishing continuous and reliable oversight of environmental and social issues, by effectively coordinating and finalising corporate initiatives and promoting sustainable development practices, with special reference to the “code of environmental commitments”, which Autostrade adopted at the end of 2003.

o Launch of three projects regarding renewable sources for energy production and saving: within the scope of a collaboration agreement with the Ministry of the Environment, Autostrade per l’Italia submitted, and subsequently received approval for, three feasibility studies regarding wind and photovoltaic power and trigeneration (heat, chilled water and electricity); the projects are developed in collaboration with universities and research institutes with experience in the sector.

o Development of the activities of Environmental Watchdogs, bodies established within the scope of EIA procedures, with a view to verifying the correct execution of planned works to mitigate impact, and the effectiveness of protection systems adopted in designs; they are an important and innovative monitoring and assessment tool: control functions are entrusted to third-party bodies and all data on the activities carried out is documented and made available to the general public, in order to achieve maximum transparency; the Environmental Watchdogs analyse all the relevant environmental factors: in 2004 they made about 17.400 measures on the motorway sections interested by new works (3.900 in 2003 and 4.100 in 2002).

o Noise monitoring activity and acoustic protection along the motorway network: at the end of 2004, the acoustic mapping of a quarter of the network was completed, total of around 109 km of noise protection barriers had been installed and almost 2,800 km of carriageway (more than 40% of the total) along the Group’s network were equipped with draining and noise-absorbent pavements capable of cutting noise levels as well as increasing safety standards.