Snam | 2015

For the third year, on 29 April 2015, Etica Sgr voted at the general shareholders’ meeting of Snam, an Italian Company engaged in managing infrastructures for the distribution of natural gas.

With the support of some investors, such as the French company Ecofi Investments, representing 7.5 billion Euros of assets under management, it attended at the shareholders’ meeting to vote and to call management’s attention to some aspects linked to corporate sustainability.

Etica Sgr expressed a favourable vote on all items on the agenda, except the proposal relating to the allocation of the financial year profit, for which the level of payout (the amount of profits to be allocated to dividends in relation to the profits recorded by Snam) was considered excessive, despite it being noted that the same has been lowered and that all results achieved by the company had generally improved, thereby making the policy on dividends more solid and sustainable than previous years. For these reasons, Etica Sgr abstained.

During the intervention at the shareholders’ meeting, appreciation was expressed for the attention demonstrated by Snam in reporting all aspects of the business activity and in preparing an increasingly complete Sustainability Report. Etica Sgr also congratulated Snam for the attention demonstrated in responding to the questionnaire promoted by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), emphasising the commitment in also responding to the questionnaire of the CDP relating to the management of water resources despite the same not constituting a fundamental aspect of the company business.

Finally, given Snam’s commitment in issues relating to the respect of human rights, also through the participation in working groups promoted by Global Compact, which led to its entry in the United Nations Global Compact 100 index, the company was asked to adopt a specific policy on the issue which also sets out the quantitative objectives to be achieved.