Presentation of Poste Italiane Group’s fifth Integrated Report

The Poste Italiane Group’s Integrated Report is now in its fifth edition and aims to illustrate how sustainability is increasingly integrated into the business model and corporate strategies, providing a clear and comprehensive representation of the Company’s financial, environmental, social and governance performance.

The Integrated Report allows Poste Italiane to effectively represent the interrelationship between the financial and sustainability elements that contribute to the definition of the Group’s business model and strategy, such as the external context, strategy, business model and forms of financial and non-financial capital. The document is a useful tool for stakeholders to gain a comprehensive understanding of the processes the Group has put in place to support the country’s growth and create shared value, describing what has been achieved while offering an overview of short-, medium- and long-term ambitions and goals.

The social and environmental impacts generated by the Group place the process of integrating sustainability into the business model at the centre of the value creation process for the Company and all its stakeholders, with the aim of contributing to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The path taken by the Group is underpinned by certain strategic and investment choices in the main forms of capital, such as financial, human, physical-structural, intellectual, socialrelational and natural, i.e. assets which contribute to sustainable success of the Company, but which on the other hand are impacted by the activities of the Company itself. For this reason, in
continuity with previous years, the document includes an overview of the correlation between the Company’s performance and the types of capital listed above, and for each of them the results achieved are illustrated in Chapter 2 “Highlights”.

Poste Italiane, through numerous ESG projects, aims to lead the country’s sustainability path, build an inclusive society and offer a greener future. Through this document, the Group aims to represent its green strategy, aimed at continuing its path of entry into the energy market, accelerating the energy transition process of the business. In addition to proposing sustainable products and offers, entering the energy market gives Poste Italiane a further boost in engaging customers and guiding them towards environmentally aware behaviour.

In continuity with the preparation of the previous Integrated Report and consistent with regulatory requirements, the 2022 Integrated Report contains the section dedicated to the European Environmental Taxonomy, found within Chapter 9 “Consolidated Non-Financial Statements”. To this end, the Group undertook a careful analysis of its activities and the regulatory framework issued by European institutions and developed a specific methodological approach aimed at providing adequate disclosure. In line with EU Regulation no. 852/2020 (Taxonomy Regulation), Poste Italiane’s Integrated Report include a differentiated disclosure of regulated KPIs, based on its industrial operations (Non Financial Undertakings) and financial operations (Financial Undertakings): in relation to industrial operations, the Group carried out an assessment in order to identify its share of Turnover, Capex and Opex aligned to the Taxonomy, while in relation to financial operations it has provided – for the second year of reporting – a disclosure of KPIs in accordance with the Eligibility analyses, in line with the Regulation.

In addition, Chapter 5 describes the methodology adopted by the Group for materiality analysis, revised to comply with the provisions of the 2021 update of the GRI standards for the inside-out perspective, and taking into account the EFRAG recommendations, albeit still in draft, for the outside-in perspective. The adoption of the dual materiality process to identify Poste Italiane’s material issues allows the Group to anticipate the entry into force of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, scheduled for FY 2024. In this regard, the main change from previous years is the updated system of indicators used for ESG performance reporting, in line with the new GRI Universal Standard 2021.

In continuity with previous years, the 2022 Integrated Report contain the Consolidated Non-Financial Statement, which is integrated into the Report on Operations in the Chapter 9 thereof. The NFS was drawn up in accordance with the requirements of Articles 3 and 4 of Legislative Decree no. 254/2016 and the “Global Reporting Initiative Sustainability Reporting Standards” defined by the GRI – Global Reporting Initiative (hereinafter “GRI Standards”) according to “in accordance” option. Chapter 9 of the section “Reporting standards and criteria” includes a connecting table that indicates the information content required by the Decree and its positioning within the Integrated Report, with the aim of making it easier to find all non-financial information. In addition, such content is also noted, to make it easily identifiable, by this infographic: 

The Group’s fifth Integrated Report was prepared by applying the Integrated Reporting framework published by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). In addition, Poste Italiane also provided disclosure of the impacts of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, which ESMA¹ required issuers to report in their 2022 Annual Financial Reports and Non-Financial Statements. In addition to the impacts of the conflict, ESMA also identifies climate change issues as a priority in the non-financial report for 2022. Confirming Poste Italiane’s commitment to combating climate change, it should be noted that as of 2021 the Group has officially joined the supporters of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure. In order to broaden the Group’s disclosure on the management of risks and opportunities related to climate change, this document illustrates how the Group’s activities are managed according to the recommendations of the TCFD, and also provides a table linking the TCFD recommendations with the contents of the Integrated Report. Finally, with the aim of reflecting potential future developments regarding climate change, Poste Italiane once again this year carried out a review of climate scenarios using as a reference the documents drawn up by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) and the main literature on the subject.

In line with previous years, the indicators used for the preparation of the 2022 Integrated Report were reclassified according to SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board) standards, with the aim of contributing to the development of a shared and universal framework for non-financial reporting. In this sense, the indicators relating to “material ESG metrics” found in the latest version, from September 2020, of the document “Towards Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation” presented to the World Economic Forum in January of the same year, have been reported again this year. By continuously updating its non-financial reporting methodology, the Poste Italiane Group demonstrates its commitment to the demands of the financial market, which is increasingly focused on assessing companies according to environmental, social and governance criteria.

The document also contains a table linking the objectives pursued by the Group, the GRI Standards indicators and the SDGs, which represents a useful tool to illustrate how the Company contributes to the achievement of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and their 169 targets, also incorporating the latest guidelines of the most up-to-date version of the “SDG Compass” document drawn up by GRI, UN Global Compact and WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development).

In addition to the Integrated Report, the Annual Financial Report is composed of the following documents: the consolidated financial statements of the Poste Italiane Group, Poste Italiane’s separate financial statements, including Bancoposta RFC’s Separate Report, and the related attestations pursuant to art. 154 bis paragraph 5 of Legislative Decree no. 58/1998 and the reports of the Board of Statutory Auditors and the Independent Auditors, referring to the financial year ended 31 December 2022, and the Report on Corporate Governance and Ownership Structure published on the Company’s website, in the Governance section, which is to be considered an integral part and to which reference should be made for further details on the Corporate Governance structure.

This Annual Financial Report, which was approved by the Board of Directors of Poste Italiane S.p.A. on 29 March 2023, will be made available to the public within the terms provided for by the regulations in force (i.e., by 30 April 2023) on the following web page: https: https://www.posteitaliane.it/it/bilanci-e-relazioni.html#/

¹ESMA document on European common supervisory priorities for 2022 “European common enforcement priorities for 2022 annual financial reports”, published on 28 October 2022.