Environment

Our international expansion has brought us to make a great effort to integrate different experiences and technological, cultural, social and legislative backgrounds.

Sharing know-how and best practices in areas such as clean coal, geothermal, the electronic meter to increase energy efficiency, brings benefits in the environmental field and is improving the capacity of Enel to serve millions of customers and the communities where it operates with full consideration for the environment.

Gradually, all of the Group’s activities have Environmental Management Systems certified according to international standards and coordinated, harmonized and monitored inside the Group, which involve staff and suppliers.

The implementation of these guidelines has confirmed, also in 2008, the positive trend of environmental performance.

The concrete commitment towards the environment is specifically demonstrated by the improvements achieved in countries where -before the acquisitions - performances were lower than Enel's benchmarks. For example:

• in Bulgaria, over the past five years, we have achieved a significant emission reduction of main pollutants (about 90% for sulphur oxides, about 80% for dust, and about 30% for nitrogen oxides in the last four years)
• in Romania, compared to 2005, the percentage of cable lines has increased from 25% to almost 50%, thus reducing the impact on the territory of distribution network.

Also in Italy, compared to 2004 levels, CO2 emissions of thermal power production have been reduced by almost 20 million tonnes (about 30%), sulphur oxide ones by more than 60%, dust ones by more than 50% and nitrogen oxides ones by more than 40%.

Even the emission of hydrogen sulphide from geothermal generation has dropped by over 40%. In 2008, the recovery of special waste was close to 90% and cable lines surpassed 70% in the whole distribution network.