PARCO PORTO DI MARE

The contribution we made by ‘getting our hands dirty’

by Maria Anastasia Chieruzzi, Sky Responsible Business

At Sky, we have always believed in the positive impact our work can have on the communities we serve and the areas we work in. We are convinced that a better business contributes to a better future. That is why we are committed to working responsibly, with the ambition of achieving the highest standards of sustainability, and using our voice to inspire people to make a difference, helping to drive change.

This responsibility goes beyond the world of business and drives us to be at the forefront of addressing the issues facing our planet. In 2006 we were the first media company in the world to become carbon neutral, and since 2017 we have been committed to protecting the oceans with the Sky Ocean Rescue campaign, in order to deal with the problem of plastic in our seas.

Today, with the Sky Zero campaign, launched in 2020 to support and promote the fight against climate change, we are going further, with the aim of reducing emissions generated across our entire line of business by at least 50 per cent by 2030, by planting trees, mangroves and other marine plant species to offset the rest of the emissions that cannot be eliminated for now, leading by example and setting ambitious targets to promote change.

Environmental protection is not the only pillar underpinning Sky's sustainability strategy. In fact, the Sky group has recently made a commitment to fighting the digital divide and developing the digital skills of 250,000 people through the allocation of a £10 million fund to fight digital exclusion.

Today, more than ever, environmental protection and valuing the earth require everyone's contribution. This is why we are always working to create projects with social value that have a positive impact.

Thanks to partnerships with various local non-profit organisations, we are committed to making our contribution by working alongside them, helping them with practical activities and actively participating in community life.

Through the Sky Cares corporate volunteering project, which offers Sky employees the opportunity to get involved in social work, we want to make a concrete contribution to the communities in the area.

As soon as it was possible to resume working in offices in person, we carried out our first major corporate volunteering activity linked to protecting the environment and reducing CO₂ emissions, in collaboration with AzzeroCO2, to plant trees in Parco Porto di Mare and Casa Chiaravalle in Milan.

As part of Mosaico Verde, the national campaign conceived and promoted by AzzeroCO2 and Legambiente, with the patronage of the most important national Institutions and associations in Italy, we carried out a reforestation project with 1,000 trees in the vicinity of our Milan headquarters. One hundred Sky employees inaugurated the project by personally planting the first trees.

The initiative is part of the 'ForestaMi' project and aims to contribute to redeveloping two areas in the city, which are already the focus of intervention by Italia Nostra and its Urban Forestry Centre: Porto di Mare park, in Rogoredo, and Casa Chiaravalle, the largest area in Lombardy that has been requisitioned because it was an asset associated with organised crime.

By taking an active part in initiatives like this, respecting biodiversity and landscape protection, we can play an active part in creating change and increase our employee’s awareness of these issues.

We sense this in the words of our colleagues who ‘got their hands dirty’: 'I believe that initiatives like this are the right way to ensure that the change, which we all want for our cities, takes place and starts with small gestures made by many people.’ Carried by the wave of the enthusiasm generated by the planting, we have renewed our commitment to what we now consider our 'garden'. On the occasion of Earth Day 2022, we organised a further voluntary activity: 'Clean Up Parco Porto di Mare'.

This is an initiative, in collaboration with Italia Nostra, to raise awareness of environmental issues, in particular the protection of Milan's green areas. This is why we have committed ourselves to cleaning up part of the Porto di Mare park, which will be used to build a cycle path.

Environmental protection is not the only pillar underpinning Sky's sustainability strategy. The Sky group has recently committed itself to fighting the digital divide and developing the digital skills of 250,000 people through the allocation of a £10 million fund against digital exclusion. The 'Sky Up' programme has the ambitious goal of improving the skills of the digitally excluded who experience difficulties with accessing technology, connecting to the internet, and accessing training. Because we have always believed in a better world and our commitment continues