• Since the first alarm on 21 February 2020, Sogin Group has reacted promptly. While continuing to guarantee the safe maintenance of Italian nuclear plants, we have put the staff functions into smart working, reducing the presence in the workplace.
• During this period, qualified training is being remotely provided to the entire company population, thus promoting professional growth and the transfer of specific know-how in the nuclear field.
• As a state-owned company, we are concretely providing our support, collaborating in environmental sterilization activities and providing protective devices for the operators involved on the front line of the health emergency, to whom we have also dedicated a video message of encouragement and support.
  
• Sogin Group will continue to support Government’s measures aimed at minimizing the spread of the infection, especially in the areas where our decommissioning plants are located.

Following the spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) and the measures to contain the infection adopted in the last few weeks by the Italian Prime Minister, Sogin Group has guaranteed, since 21 February, a rapid response to the emergency, conscious that with everyone's commitment we can overcome this difficult moment for our country.

First of all, we didn't stop. We are the state company in charge of the Italian nuclear plants decommissioning outbreak and of the radioactive waste management, Our employees have continued to guarantee health and nuclear safety in our country, ensuring maximum support to the institutions.

This required a stronger management commitment that we have been able to immediately put into action thanks to a solid organizational structure and our professionalism, already trained to respond to possible emergency situations.

We have immediately activated a Crisis Unit, which has set up operating procedures to keep on guaranteeing maximum safety in nuclear sites and access to agile working methods to our employees.

In order to minimize travel and presence at the workplace we have, on an exceptional basis, favored smart working for our employees in the Staff functions at their residence / domicile. At the same time, we have reduced the presence of personnel at the workplace in order to protect everyone's health, while guaranteeing the full continuity of the safe maintenance of Italian nuclear plants.

Moreover, through our Radwaste Management School, remote training sessions are underway for the entire company population, aimed at promoting professional growth and strengthening the health and safety culture in the workplace and the know-how on issues such as radiation protection, decommissioning and waste management.

The procedures adopted on nuclear sites and the use, on an extraordinary basis, of agile working methods, add to the precautionary measures implemented during the last few weeks to reduce risk of contagion. In particular, we immediately canceled all the non-strictly necessary business trips, the participation in conferences, events and training courses and visits by persons external to company premises.

As a state-owned company, we are concretely providing our support to deal with the ongoing epidemic emergency. In the past few days, we have donated different quantities of protective material - over 40,000 surgical masks, 2,200 tyvek suits and stocks of overshoes and gloves - for the social and health workers of the areas in which the Company operates. In particular, our donations were addressed to the Lombardy Region, through Aria SpA, the Civil Protection of Emilia-Romagna and Piemonte, to the Local Health Authorities of Piacenza and Vercelli, to the hospitals Santa Maria Goretti of Latina and San Rocco of Sessa Aurunca (Caserta) and to the Red Cross of Gattinara (Vercelli).

Our concrete commitment continued with an operational collaboration with the Local Health Unit of Piacenza for the sterilization of the premises of Guglielmo da Saliceto hospital. Until 30 June, four Sogin Group teams, each made up of two chemists and health physics technicians, will be involved in environmental sterilization activities, for a total of over 700 operating hours.

One of the crucial measures for containing and correctly managing the emergency has been, and still is, a constant internal and external communication.

Sogin Group has over 1,100 employees located in 13 premises, 11 in Italy and 2 abroad: Bratislava (Slovakia) and Moscow (Russian Federation). Therefore, since the beginning, internal communication has been a fundamental tool for a company with an extended geographical deployment like ours.

Since the first days of the epidemiological emergency, we have implemented a timely and proactive communication policy towards corporate population, aimed at ensuring a behavior consistent with the health authorities' requests and, moreover, making all the adopted measures immediately available.

In addition to the consolidated channels, such as the intranet and the internal video information system (in which a section dedicated to the current emergency was created), Sogin Group used an SMS alert service for urgent information and adopted the Microsoft Teams platform as a collaboration and information tool, especially for those in smart working.

Thanks to the network of our company physicians, we have activated a help-line for all employees, in particular for those who are in the most exposed provinces of Emilia Romagna and Piedmont.

Addressing its external stakeholders, Sogin Group has spread through its web channels the actions put in place by the company and official communications from the institutions, inviting them to follow the government's recommendations for the prevention of COVID-19 contagion. We have also constantly supported on our social channels the dissemination of information and awareness campaigns by the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Health (i.e. the "I'm staying home" campaign), as well as other initiatives such as the one from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (“L'Italia Chiamò”) as well as voluntary activities by the Italian Red Cross.

We have also created and published a video message which expresses all the Sogin Group's encouragement to the social-health workers committed to fighting the Covid-19 outbreak on the front line, while reaffirming our commitment to guarantee the safety of Italian nuclear sites under decommissioning.

We are constantly supporting, through our social channels, the dissemination of information and awareness campaigns by the Italian Prime Minister, by the Ministry of Health and the by the Italian National Care Institute (Istituto Superiore di Sanità), as well as spreading other initiatives that may be of interest for Sogin employees and for our stakeholders.

We are convinced that this is the moment of transparency, a principle that has always informed our communication policy, but also of sharing and solidarity between institutions, companies and citizens.

Together we can do it.

Published: 17/03/2020

Last update: 16/04/2020