Leonardo creates a new green area at its Foggia site alongside Arbolia

Under one of the initiatives included in its Sustainability Plan, Leonardo, with the support of Leonardo Global Solutions, has conducted its first complete reforestation programme on the land in one of the Group’s industrial sites, creating a new green area at the Foggia plant. The project was developed under a partnership with Arbolia, a benefit company set up by Snam and Fondazione Cassa Depositi e Prestiti to promote and implement tree planting and reforestation projects all over Italy with a view to fighting climate change, improving air quality and quality of life in cities, and creating green areas for communities.

The project involved planting more than 1,650 trees and shrubs in marginal parts of the site and areas frequented by employees. The land was reforested, following a specialised agroforestry study, with tree species native to the area in order to preserve local biodiversity.

Targets for reducing CO2 emissions

Over the next 20 years, the project at the Foggia site is expected to absorb a total of over 360 tonnes of CO2, decrease PM10 emissions (fine particulate present in the atmosphere) by up to 16.6 tonnes, and release more than 260 tonnes of oxygen into the atmosphere. With time, the area will become a new “green lung” accessible to all site employees. The idea underlying the partnership between Leonardo and Arbolia is a simple one: despite today’s increasingly advanced technological horizons, planting trees is still an effective way to combat climate change and promote biodiversity. Trees are valuable allies: through photosynthesis, they absorb and accumulate large quantities of CO₂ present in the atmosphere, helping to fight climate change and promote human health and well-being.

Leonardo’s commitment to decarbonisation

Leonardo has been working on projects aimed at decreasing emissions for some time now, working towards the goal of reducing CO2 by 40% by the year 2030, permitting more efficient use of resources and supporting the ecological transition In 2022, Leonardo officially stated its commitment to the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi), a partnership promoted by UN Global compact (UNGC), World Resource Institute (WRI), CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) and WWF, which now has more than 2,000 member companies the world over. SBTi supports companies in their efforts to pursue the goal of decarbonisation, guiding them in setting targets aligned with the aim of limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5°C, as required under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Leonardo’s production site at Foggia

With approximately 1,000 employees, in addition to the workforce in the supply chain, the Foggia site is one of the crowing achievements of Leonardo’s aeronautical division, a centre of excellence for the production of aerostructures made of composite materials for military and civil aircraft: from the Eurofighter Typhoon to the F-35, and from the Boeing 787 Dreamliner to the ATR, a bestselling regional turboprop aircraft. The site represents a concrete example of the company’s processes of innovation and industrial transformation, implemented through investment in the digitisation of production lines and corporate processes to ensure the competitiveness of current programmes and make the most of future opportunities. Complete automation of the Airbus A220 programme line has been implemented in Foggia to expand and boost capacity, production processes and logistical flows with solutions aimed at improving competitiveness on the global aeronautics market and optimising integration with the supply chain.