What’s in a sustainability review?

In just a few years, per-person energy consumption at Eurac Research has dropped by 42 percent. What concrete actions and external factors account for this result?
Aureliano Piva: More detailed monitoring of our consumption helped us spot waste and use energy more efficiently. Add to that our connection to district heating – which, between 2022 and 2023, cut the thermal energy used at our headquarters by nearly 50 percent – and, well, a bit of luck [laughs]. As it turned out, the evaporative cooling tower broke down, giving us the perfect excuse to replace the old system with a far more efficient one.

Did the pandemic have an impact?
Piva: Overall, from an energy standpoint, very little: the building was heated anyway, and the servers were always running. Individual laptops have very little impact. On mobility, however, the effect was clear: between 2020 and 2022, emissions plummeted, only to return in 2023 to levels even higher than the pre-pandemic period.

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Sustainability strategy and review: a process that lasted about four years. Is there one thing that made you proud?
Piva: Participation made the difference. Through workshops, surveys, and a range of working groups, we involved around 150 people – roughly 20 percent of staff – a remarkable level of engagement for this kind of process. In the end, there’s no real alternative: measures only work when they’re tailored to the context and genuinely shared. Take the labs – you need a deep understanding of what’s happening on the ground to intervene effectively. Without the people who work there, it simply doesn’t work.

And is there a figure that made you think, “We really need to work on this”?
Piva: Flights, especially short-haul ones. These alone account for 35 percent of our mobility emissions, with a similar share associated with long-haul flights. In part, these emissions are unavoidable: research requires exchange and in-person meetings. But could the train have been a better option sometimes? And when could the trip have been avoided? There are no right answers, of course. But in this gray area, we must find a balance between convincing people and setting limits.

Traveling by train accounts for just over 7 percent of emissions, even though it covers only a quarter of the total distance traveled. In contrast, air travel, which accounts for half of the total distance traveled, is responsible for nearly three-quarters of emissions.

A sustainability review is primarily based on indicators. What can’t be captured by numbers?
Piva: The human element. People’s willingness to change habits can’t be measured or neatly predicted – and even seemingly simple choices, like printing less or repurposing equipment instead of throwing it away, can meet more resistance than you’d expect. And then there’s the reporting side: we’ve followed the standard Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) indicators, but some of them don’t do a great job of capturing what we actually do.

For example?
Piva: The indicators on procurement and production of goods. We are not a manufacturing company; in our case, the main impact stems from behaviors rather than outputs. 

Eurac Research studies climate change, biodiversity, and social inclusion. Have you ever felt a tension between the scientific mission and the ecological footprint?
Piva:  Yes, there is a tension, and it is inevitable: conducting research involves energy consumption, travel, and procurement. At the same time, the scientific mission makes a positive contribution, for example in terms of decarbonization, ecosystem protection, and social inclusion. However, we must avoid using it as an excuse; we must remain true to ourselves and continue our efforts, both small and large. At Eurac Research, there is a high level of environmental awareness among individuals, and many daily practices already reduce our impact: now we want to transform this focus into structural choices, increasingly integrating environmental criteria into decision-making processes.

Financial statements are the subject of intense public scrutiny. Where do sustainability reviews stand?
Piva: A financial review sends a clear, immediate signal – a plus or minus tells you straight away how things are going. A sustainability review is a different beast altogether. It’s harder to measure, harder to compare, and brings together very different kinds of indicators – especially once you look beyond emissions and start considering social impact. Think of local engagement, staff contributing to the economic and cultural life of the area or working conditions that shape collective well-being even if they’re difficult to quantify.
Because of this complexity – and the uneven maturity of standards – sustainability reviews tend to be less popular. In many sectors they attract less media attention, and some companies see them either as a box-ticking exercise or, at the other extreme, as an opportunity for greenwashing.

An example of an indicator not related to emissions?
Piva: The gender pay gap. At Eurac Research, it averages less than five percent. In senior positions, where women are currently underrepresented, the gap rises to 20 percent (Editor’s note: here are the ISTAT data on Italian averages). In the “specialist” category, which includes, for example, administrative roles and junior research positions, women earn on average six percent more than men: a figure that is also influenced by the composition of the roles and seniority.

In ten years, what concrete goal would you like to have achieved?
Piva: The goal is simple – to reach a point where we no longer need to talk about sustainability strategies at all, because sustainability is already embedded in everyday practice across Eurac Research.