World Environment Day

In 1972, the UN established World Environment Day. Over time, this special day has become one of the main occasions to turn the spotlight on sustainability and to encourage global action. This year, the slogan chosen to boost reflection is ‘Our Land. Our future. We are #GenerationRestoration'.

The FS Group has also decided to give factual meaning to this anniversary by signing a protocol with a number of environmental and animal welfare associations: LAV (Anti-Vivisection League), Legambiente and Enpa (National Animal Protection Agency). The aim is to join forces and expertise in favour of environmental sustainability, in particular for the protection of animals and biodiversity. The agreement creates a steering committee with the task of drawing up a territorial intervention plan that will then be implemented by working groups.

Particular attention is being paid to projects in protected areas such as nature parks, Special Areas of Conservation, Sites of Community Interest and Special Protection Areas. For example, in Tivoli Terme (formerly Bagni di Tivoli), not far from Rome, Italferr, the engineering company of the FS Group's Infrastructure Hub, is working on the doubling of the railway line and the new road system - in the area close to the station - resulting from the elimination of the level crossing currently present. Among the various project alternatives, the one that takes up the least amount of natural area and has the least impact on biodiversity has been selected. The site involved, in fact, is of Community interest and hosts a priority habitat (home to plant and animal species threatened with extinction and therefore included in the European Habitat Directive 92/43/EEC).

In Sicily, on the other hand, the company is pursuing a project for a new connection line to the port that will allow the decommissioning of seven kilometres of historic railway line that currently crosses another site of community importance such as the ‘Saline di Augusta’ (Augusta salt pits). A new variant of the Messina-Siracusa line will be created and a station will be built outside the town centre. The railway bypass project includes environmental insertion works that will contribute to the preservation and protection of flora, fauna, ecosystems and habitats via the placement of vegetation strips that act as filters and that protect wetlands.

This is a constant commitment today for Italferr, working on the front line together with the FS Group on sustainable railway projects that are integrated into the Italian environmental and landscape context.