Presentation of the sustainability report Malagò: "CONI is an Italian certainty". Miglietta: "Important results"
CONI's 2015 Sustainability Report was presented at the tennis centre in the Parco del Foro Italico. The document, developed in line with the G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines defined in 2013 by the Global Reporting Initiative, aims to share the organisation's strategy and report on the economic, social and environmental results in a structured way. The meaning and importance of this report were presented by President of CONI Giovanni Malagò (photo credit: Mezzelani-GMT), along with Managing Director of Coni Servizi Alberto Miglietta and Prof. Enrico Giovannini, Professor of Economic Statistics, University of Rome Tor Vergata and Spokesperson of the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development. The project has been managed by the Strategy and Social Responsibility team, led by Teresa Zompetti, with the collaboration of all CONI organisations.
The sustainable management model adopted by CONI and Coni Servizi is built on five pillars: transparent governance and reporting, stakeholder inclusion and involvement, commitment to top-level sport, enhancement of the social role of sport and emphasis on people. These are the cornerstones of the organisation's identity.
Malagò opened proceedings by speaking proudly about the project and the key points of the programme that led him to become the leader of CONI in 2013. "This is the third edition of the report. Year on year we are improving the presentation of information. The social report came about because CONI wants to stand up on so many topics, to give answers to our stakeholders: we asked for their ideas, as CONI we wanted to know what they want in order to invest in Italian sport. The Report was created in accordance with the latest and most stringent standards currently existing internationally in terms of sustainability reporting. Today, we are presenting a model known as GRI, a report in Italian which, in a few days, you will also be able to find on our website in English, because we also have investors abroad. It has undergone a limited scope review by KPMG, as we are a Public Body and we want to be transparent. When I present this report to my colleagues from other national Olympic committees, it seems that we are miles ahead. Even on the cover, this report emphasises that CONI is fully devoted to sport, partly thanks to numerous institutional and private partnerships. It undoubtedly supports National Sports Federations and Associate Sports Disciplines for sports and elite athletes and develops talent, but it also works to promote sport among children and young people, who are the future of sport and our country. We are involved in social development through focusing on the community thanks to consolidated reasoning in suburban areas, activities in schools and engaging with the most disadvantaged. For instance there are projects in the pipeline for areas affected by the earthquake – through CONI Ragazzi – and projects aiming to provide sports facilities for reception centres housing young migrants. CONI is amongst the few certainties that our country has, and this is something to be proud of".
The CONI organisation's (CONI and Coni Servizi) added value as recorded in 2015 grew around EUR 11 million compared with 2014 to EUR 486,025,348, largely distributed to stakeholders and as support for the sports system in particular. Alberto Miglietta, MD of Coni Servizi, elaborated further on the details of the relationship between CONI and Coni Servizi, focused on good governance. "Over the years, CONI and Coni Servizi have developed an excellent economic and financial management system, which has enabled the resources employed throughout the CONI organisation's processes to be developed and made more efficient and a constant reduction in the value of the service contract. Between 2003 and 2015 the service contract saw a downward trend, with savings of around 77 million (-43%), with Coni Servizi's revenues increased by + 712% and similar trend in the total operating revenues, rising from 2% to 23%. These results have led to greater efficiency and managerial autonomy, development of human resources, and at the same time made it possible to provide more resources to developing sporting bodies. These results have been achieved through the development of people, their professional advancement and our know-how. This document encourages us to continue on our path, and I thank Teresa Zompetti for the important work she has done with her team. All the activities developed have led us to become a centre of interest. The Olympic Committee has never before received requests to support projects by Ministries. At the beginning of the journey, the Ministries we had the most involvement with were the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. In the last year we have worked with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office. We are working with the same level of human resources. Being a public company we have major limitations when it comes to increasing our resources and in order to support the implementation of these projects we are managing to do it with the same human resources. It is nothing miraculous, it is merely a thought, a project to train our resources so that, by optimising their work, we manage to achieve much more in the same number of working hours than in the past. They are few in number but it was an opportunity to share this, which we believe sets a positive example to our nation".
Today's presentation was also attended by Enrico Giovannini, former Minister of Labour and former president of Istat. "I like to imagine that this sustainability report is also proof that the world of sport has a duty to help our country win the sustainable development competition, one of the key principles of the UN's 2030 agenda. This document is written in a comprehensive and engaging way, and is a model for many other organisations. We have 169 targets and 17 goals: we ask CONI's champions to adopt a goal, a target, and help us in this campaign."