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Caronte & Tourist Group presented to the press its Sustainability Report for the 2018 financial year at the Palazzo Franza auditorium.
The dimensional growth undertaken by Caronte & Tourist Group corresponds with a significant increase in responsibility - financial and non-financial - that the Company feels towards the territory. An expansion that has been progressing gradually for more than half a century, but which in recent years has undergone an exponential acceleration that allowed the company to become leader in the maritime sector and above all an example of foresight in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility for the Southern Italy economy.
Today we constantly hear about sustainable development, but C&T had already made it reality long time ago thanks to the voluntary application of strategic choices that included environmental protection and social promotion. The broad concept of sustainability allows the company to analyse its results in a completly way in terms of economic, social and environmental contribution to a given community: nowadays, in fact, companies are social agents that create tangible and intangible values . For this reason, the Group has drawn up a Sustainabilty Report describing the company’s performance, its results and the most significant impacts on environment, society and the local economy in order to meet the growing sensitivity of customers and institutions to the environmental and social issues. In addiction, the report aim is to increase stakeholder confidence through a transparent dialogue, according to European directives regarding transparency about non-financial information.
The drafting of the Sustainability Report was entrusted to Ad Hoc, a Milanese agency specialized in report and analysis. The agency uses the 2016 GRI Standards guidelines, the most applied reporting criterion worldwide. According to the report, until 2017 the activities were essentially directed to connect “The Strit Community”to the Continent through the historical route of Messina-Villa San Giovanni and the direct cabotage service with Salerno; in recent years, thanks to the acquisition of the former Siremar, the Group connects has included the important public function of connecting Aeolian Island, function that is fulfilled thanks to the division Caronte & Tourist Isole Minori.
During 2018 the company managed to serve ten different routes on Mediterranean waters, with a 28 ships fleet that continues to ensure constant connections from Sicily with 14 smaller islands, Calabria, Campania and, seasonally, Sardinia and La Maddalena . As reported in the Sustainability Report, in fact, ships traveled over 1.2 million kilometers, transporting 6.1 million passengers and over 2 million vehicles.
Within the 2018 report, it is possible to become aware, in particular, of the environmental sustainability strategy, described already by new goals of the Development Plan 2018/2020 such as strengthening and increasing the efficiency of the fleet through an investment plan to reduce emissions, sustaining the experimentation of alternative and less invasive fuels and the final goals of total transition to biodegradable or recyclable materials on board in order to to complete the eco-sustainable transformation. These objectives were partially already reached: in 2018 C&T reduced CO2 emissions by 2.1% and, at the end of the year, the company has launched Elio, the ship with the record of eco-efficiency thanks to its LNG power. In addiction, the company has recently announced the birth of an Elio’s twin that will sail the waters of the Mediterranean by 2021.
After the change of the organizational structure from family to managerial, the Group aims to international standards; not for this, however, the company has become short-sighted towards its territory of origin, which, on the contrary, benefits from a driving effect in economic growth and in the employment rate. The group, in fact, is not limited to a univocal model of progress, but is committed to the role of "facilitator" of generalized development and well-being.
The added value - equal to 99.5 million - represents, for example, the direct contribution of C&T to the production of local wealth in 2018; in the same year, in addition, the Company paid a total of 8.3 million to the central and local public administrations in favor of the Sicilian economy out of a total of 438.2 million. Data that, as reported by the Revenue Agency, have made the C&T Group the most important private taxpayer in Sicily.
As regards the influence on the work field, C&T contributes to create 0.4% of the entire employment of the region and 4.3% of the jobs of the regional sea economy; taking into account the direct, indirect and induced effects, the overall employment impact is 4,706.8 units of work. In 2018, the Group contributed to reducing youth unemployment by hiring 88 young people under 30 years old and it encouraged students through scholarships for deserving students from Messina and Villa San Giovanni (in 2019 those of Trapani and Milazzo were added).
During the year, it also advanced on the equal opportunities front, reducing the average pay gap between female and male staff by 4.3% C&T.
From the reading of the Sustainability Report the Group results absolutely aware of how each choice adopted to meet a current need also has future social and environmental effects, as well as merely economic. The intergenerational perspective and the concept of sustainability therefore introduces a wider concept of stakeholder, which takes into account the communities that are directly or indirectly involved in the company's activities, with a careful look at future generations.