Milan, October 1st, 2021 – Today, Enel organized in Milan ‘Circular Cities: Impacts on decarbonization and beyond’, which is one of the official Italian pre-COP 26 events and is focused on circular cities, in particular on the key challenges that cities are currently facing as well as on how they can be redesigned based on principles of circular economy to achieve global decarbonization targets while improving city resilience and quality of life. The event was opened by Filippo Del Corno, Councilor for Culture for the Municipality of Milan, and Anna Richardson, City Convener for Sustainability and Carbon Reduction of the City of Glasgow, as representatives of the cities hosting pre-COP 26 and COP 26 events.
Enel Chairman Michele Crisostomo also attended the event and talked about how cities have had to innovate over the centuries and what has to be done to face today’s challenges, such as climate change, pollution, social exclusion, quality of life. Mr. Crisostomo also mentioned some examples of Enel projects aimed at addressing these areas, including the around 900 electric buses introduced in Bogotà, part of the Group’s overall e-bus fleet in South America, and the digital tools and solutions that Enel’s advanced energy service business line Enel X offers to public customers.
“Cities are the places where civilization has evolved, offering brand new opportunities for the social and economic development of their citizens,” said Enel Chairman Michele Crisostomo. “Today’s projections confirm that urbanization will grow at global level, leading to increasingly vast, complex and difficult to manage agglomerations. For this reason, redesigning cities to make them more sustainable, liveable and resilient will be crucial for everyone's quality of life as well as for both global and local environmental sustainability. At Enel, we are committed to making the circular city vision a reality through new design approaches combining different advanced solutions such as renewable energy, electric mobility, as well as tools for cities to monitor and improve their circularity. An example, is the Enel X’s recently launched Circular City Index, which is available for free to all Italian municipalities to measure circularity KPIs through open data.”
During the event, Alan Belfield, CEO of Arup, the global leading company in built environment, also intervened.
In addition, the study that Enel in cooperation with Arup, Enel Foundation and the support of Bocconi University of Milan, University of Genoa and University de los Andes of Bogotà, are carrying out for COP 26 was presented. The study, with a specific focus on Milan, Genova, Glasgow and Bogotà, explores how cities can strongly contribute to achieve global decarbonization targets while improving city resilience and quality of life.
Finally, two round tables discussed these challenges from different perspectives, with contributions from Claudia López, Mayor of Bogotà, Marco Bucci, Mayor of Genoa, Silvio Barbero, Vice President of UNISG, Maria Chiara Pastore, R&D Director at Stefano Boeri Architetti, Oriana Romano, Head of Water, Governance and Circular Economy Unit and Cities at OECD, José Luis Samaniego, Director of Sustainable Development at CEPAL and Caterina Sarfatti, Director Inclusive Climate Action C40.
Enel Foundation is the Enel Group’s knowledge platform focusing on the crucial role of clean energy to ensure a sustainable future. The Foundation carries out research and education work, by developing partnerships with pre-eminent experts and institutions across the globe. Enel Foundation operates at the intersection of business and society by engaging institutions and governmental bodies, thought leaders and civil society representatives, industry experts and academia. It is a non-profit organization seeking to converge with likeminded actors determined to solve global challenges with the aim to ensure a sustainable future for all.
Enel is a multinational power company and a leading integrated player in the global power and renewables markets. It is the largest European utility by ordinary EBITDA, and is present in over 30 countries worldwide, producing energy with around 89 GW of installed capacity. Enel distributes electricity through a network of over 2.2 million kilometers, and with around 75 million end users is the 1st network operator globally1. Enel Green Power is the world’s largest renewable private player, with around 50 GW of wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower plants installed in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Enel X, Enel's global advanced energy services business line, is the worldwide demand response leader, with a total capacity of around 7.4 GW managed globally; the company has installed 137 MW of storage capacity as well as, in the electric mobility sector, about 232,000 EV charging points2 around the globe.
1 Publicly owned operators not included.
2 Public and private charging points, including interoperability points.