Enel X’s Ongoing Commitment to Biodiversity

Three beehives find a haven on the roof at company headquarters in Rome

Adopting Bees for Biodiversity

Enel X makes sustainability and environmental protection an integral part of its business. That’s why the company chose the week culminating on United Nations International Day for Biological Diversity May 22, 2022 to inaugurate its rooftop Bee Garden, a project underlining Enel X’s commitment to biodiversity.

“Building a shared future for all life” is this year’s chosen UN slogan, continuing the momentum generated last year under the theme “We’re part of the solution” — a reminder that biodiversity is the answer to many of the sustainable development challenges we face: from climate change to health, from food and water security to sustainable livelihoods. Enel X is responding to this call for daily actions to safeguard the biodiversity of our planet, and to integrate biodiversity into as many economic sectors and strategies as possible.

Why Bees?

Bees are essential to the environment and human survival because of their precious work as pollinators, which supports the production of 87 of the world’s leading food crops.

Greenpeace has estimated that 71 crops out of 100 end up on our tables thanks to the work of bees, and that in Italy alone, the added value of pollination for food crops amounts to 1.5 billion euros a year.

However, bees and other pollinators are under increasing pressure from industrial agriculture, pollution, and the use of insecticides, herbicides and pesticides. By protecting these essential creatures and letting them do their vital work, urban beekeeping can therefore play a leading role in helping to preserve the delicate balance of our terrestrial ecosystem.

Someone’s hand taking bees out of a hive

View from behind of someone at a beehive

What Is Urban Beekeeping?

Urban beekeeping is the practice of keeping bee colonies in urban areas. It makes a tangible contribution to biodiversity in an urban setting and has become a part of the corporate social responsibility portfolios of companies around the world, enabling them to contribute to environmental protection and the conservation of biodiversity.

Enel X has taken this to heart by adopting three beehives that have been placed on the roof of its world headquarters in Rome. One year after the hives were installed, Francesco Venturini, Head of Enel X Global Retail, inaugurated the Bee Garden on May 16, 2022. It is home to 180,000 honey bees which pollinate 90 million flowers in the surrounding area of Rome every day, producing their own honey in a small garden set up to protect them from the sun. During the inauguration, visitors saw the bees at work, and sampled their honey. Our apiary is managed and cared for by apicolturaurbana.it, the Italian urban beekeeping organization that offers its services to companies, parks and schools in order to help people rediscover nature and learn about the protection of biodiversity.

Enel X Bee Garden

For Enel X, this project represents an important step in the development of an urban biodiversity strategy that is in keeping with our sustainable development policy.

Anna Santucci

Head of Environment at Enel X

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Adopting the hives is a concrete demonstration of Enel X’s support for the protection of biodiversity, as called for by United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15: protect, restore, and promote the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems and halt biodiversity loss.

Thanks to this project, the company will organize educational workshops where participants will get to see the bees up close, in complete safety and under the guidance of expert technicians, and learn why they are so important to our survival. This fits in with SDG 11, which calls for inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and human settlements, as well as SDG 12: ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

Enel X has made a strong commitment to environmental, social and economic sustainability at every level of its business and its value chain. For us, nature is everyone's home: an ecosystem of precious shared assets that need to be protected.

We promote the responsible use of natural resources, and we involve our customers, partners and stakeholders in striving to achieve the common goals of decarbonization and fighting climate change: all Enel X services and products are an invitation to choose to protect nature and biodiversity, every day.

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Enel X’s Ongoing Commitment to Biodiversity

Adopting Bees for Biodiversity

Why Bees?