Sustainability, from various points of view, was at the center of our usual annual meeting.

We went to Sardinia to visit Sassari, Alghero and Asinara, and above all, for the annual meeting to share the value generated by our people and projects, for customers and the community.

The SHELTER 2022 Team Meeting Headquarter was our new office in Sassari.

It was an opportunity, as well as for a Safety Moment, to discuss new activities and services that we are approaching on the topics:

• Sustainability, understood both as a service to customers and as per SHELTER approach: by the first months of 2023 we will present our first Sustainability Report
• Sustainable Safety.

Sustainability

We have decided to share our ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) results and objectives in the first Sustainability Report, which will be prepared on the basis of 2022 data and shared with stakeholders at the beginning of next year.

To achieve this, the contributions and inputs of every member of SHELTER team and our stakeholders will be essential to maximize the impact of the company’s vision and strategy for sustainable development.

At the same time, we actively support our clients to understand, define and communicate the ESG impact of their businesses. This is the first step in planning carbon footprint mitigation measures, as well as policies aimed at greater inclusiveness, equity and participation for the benefit of the competitiveness of organizations.

Furthermore, we shared a recent case study on the comparative assessment of the carbon footprint of a product made with different materials (plastic, recycled plastic, recycled paper pulp) through the study of its life cycle (LCA – Life Cycle Assessment). This example has shown that the issue of sustainability is increasingly becoming a decision-making factor that allows companies to implement solutions with a lower carbon footprint, based on objective and realistic data.

Sustainable security

We want to create internally, and support our customers in this area, a type of sustainability declined as “safety of people“, at work and in life.

The basis is the “Culture of Safety”, a set of organizational processes, professional practices, written and informal rules and regulations, language, way of thinking, perceiving and dealing with dangerous situations and risks.

Culture is linked to the values of the organization, affects personal values and creates “an added value for each person within the organization, and for the wider society”: an interdependence between individuals and the community within the which we live.

How to understand what is the Culture of Safety in your organization?

And how to make it grow?

There are many ways, our part from an analysis of the organization and how it manages the business processes that affect safety, to assess the maturity of the company (overall or by focusing on specific critical areas) and define strategic actions and operational plans.

The goal is to embark on a virtuous path that leads to change in behavior based on mutual trust.

Some actions may include:

• The identification of areas to work on for the definition of a vision and strategies in favor of safety
• Training and coaching at different levels to stimulate safe behaviors and supplant “bad habits”
• Make habitual and motivate to intervene and make “wise” decisions in case of unsafe situations
• Empower people and become guarantors of their own and others’ safety.

Here we are, SHELTER’s office based in Sassari is finally in full operation!

The historical building “Palazzo Segni”, located in viale Umberto I n.52, Sassari, also hosting the Department of History, human sciences and education of the University of Sassari, has been selected as ideal setting for our operations in Sardinia, improving SHELTER’s footprint and capabilities to respond to clients’ needs.

In fact, as already demonstrated with and by SHELTER’s office in Brindisi, the mix of international know-how with local presence and knowledge is a key distinguishing pillar of SHELTER’s development and diversification strategy.

The decision to invest in this new operating office in Sardinia recognize the value and the potentiality of a unique territory where large and strategic industrial assets cohabit with and exceptional natural capital; sustainability, green economy and net to zero policies can find here their natural and solid development conditions.

The responsibility of Sardinian office has been given to Alessandro Aresu, a professional environmental engineer with strong background in environmental and sustainability programs definition and implementation, some of them regarding Sardinia territory:

“After more than 20 years of professional engagement in challenging projects either for Italian and international enterprises, I am excited to give back to my territory what I learned and experienced, conscious about the differences and diversities that, according to SHELTER’s and my personal view, represent a value rather than a limit”.

Contact: alessandro.aresu@shelter-srl.com

With the official amendment of the Italian Republic’s Constitution, the protection of the environment and biodiversity becomes one of the pillars of our country.

A necessary step in line with the new environmental awareness, in a country like Italy that holds the record of infringement procedures and violations of European directives on the environment and climate laws.

With the reform, “the protection of the environment, biodiversity and ecosystems, in the interest of future generations”, is included among the fundamental principles of the Constitutional Charter (Article 9 of the Constitution).

“The Republic promotes the development of culture and scientific and technical research. It protects the landscape and the historical and artistic heritage of the nation.

It protects the environment, biodiversity and ecosystems, also in the interest of future generations. State law regulates the methods and forms of animal protection”.

Furthermore, in the matter of private economic initiative, the existing rule (art. 41 of the Constitution) is supplemented by providing that this activity cannot be carried out in such a way as to damage health and the environment.

“Private economic initiative is free. It cannot take place in conflict with social utility or in a way that damages health, the environment, safety, freedom, human dignity. The law determines the appropriate programs and controls so that public and private economic activity can be directed and coordinated for social and environmental purposes”.

This integration represents an epochal fact and we hope it will find a prompt confirmation also in the facts.

The role of a company like ours, therefore, becomes even more important, because it is our task to help our customers to operate in compliance with health, safety and environment applicable laws, to balance the growth of their business with resilience, to achieve compliance and reducing, or eliminating, risks by protecting our natural environment.

For many, 2021 was the year of awareness of how much we must strive to improve the sustainability of coexistence with the environment around us. For us, this has been a daily commitment for more than a decade and also in the year that is ending we have supported our Clients in carrying out their business, respecting the environment and people.

The 10% turnover growth is the result of a consolidation on important and international projects. In addition to consolidating our role in supporting the management of the environmental aspects of the TAP pipeline, we have put resources and skills available in Canada, supporting our Client in preparing a tender to improve local mobility in a sustainable way and in Saudi Arabia, in the NEOM‘s visionary project: ‘The Line’.

Our operational commitment goes hand by hand with research: we participated and supported an initiative such as “Energy & Strategy Observatories”, which allowed us to take part into discussions with the major players in the sector at national level.

We owe all this to the results obtained with our work and to the trust that companies and institutions have given us – such as the Politecnico di Milano -, a trust that still allows us to grow and look to 2022 with enthusiasm and desire to do.

Our wishes for a Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year therefore go to all our people, collaborators, customers and partners.

On Friday 19th November 2021 SHELTER finalized the purchase of further shares of RSK Environment Italia S.r.l., going from 17% to 25% of the company’s shareholding.

We have achieved the goal we set for ourselves in 2018: from an initial participation of 10% we had planned to be able to reach 25% following the achievement of a series of objectives. They were: the identification of new opportunities through new customers, the growth of turnover and the implementation of group’s QHSE standards. In this way, SHELTER consolidates the partnership with RSK Environment Limited, the parent company that holds 75% of RSK Environment Italia S.r.l..

RSK Environment Limited, an English company founded in 1989, is certified and accredited as per ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001. It’s one of the largest private consulting firms in Europe engaged in providing environmental, health & safety services for companies and businesses operating mainly in Europe, ex Soviet Union, Middle East and Africa, thanks to the work of over 2,500 people distributed in more than 90 offices.

The core business of RSK Environment Italia S.r.l is environmental Due Diligence: investigations and remediation of contaminated soil, subsoil and groundwater, site-specific risk analysis, decommissioning. The company has been present in our offices in Milan since 2018.

The collaboration with RSK Environment Ltd was born in 2015 with the TAP project, in Puglia, and today we are working on various projects and opportunities abroad, including the prestigious NEOM project.

Our work often takes us to the field, in the midst of nature, in industrial sites and installations around the world, for surveys, studies and assessments. We travel and move frequently, do not return to the office and do not see our colleagues for several days, sometimes weeks.

This is also why it is important to work on cohesion and team spirit, that has led us to where we are today, with constant growth since the company was founded.

The opening of the Brindisi office was an opportunity to move, once again, but this time all together, for a group experience to discover the archaeological, multicultural and enogastronomic beauties of the area.

We of the Milan team have thus become familiar with the new Brindisi office and have become better acquainted with all those expressions of local culture that we can often only touch on our business trips.

These trips, for something different than professional commitments, are for us at SHELTER an established tradition that is part of our corporate culture. They are repeated to remind us that, although we travel to provide our professional services individually in the field, we are part of a team in which everyone plays their part to achieve the goal.

“We are not a team because we work together.
We are a team because we respect each other”.
(Simon Sinek)

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