The ESG Observatory Award, the winners of the ninth edition

Finally, tied for second place, is the Padua-based Sit, whose core business is energy efficiency as it manufactures gas and water consumption measurement systems.

In third place, there are two companies such as Avio and Iren. In the case of Avio, by the way, just this year, at the end of March when the Observatory's monitoring had already been completed, it entered the Ftse Mib index, the blue chip index of Piazza Affari. A segment that precisely the ESG Observatory does not cover, given the wide visibility it already enjoys. Avio, like other groups, integrates ESG objectives into the incentive system of its management. The other ex aequo for third place is Iren, a multi-utility based in Reggio Emilia, which has been on the path of sustainability for years and works hard on its relationship with territories and stakeholders.

The segment of the Egm, the former Aim Italia of Piazza Affari, is dedicated to small companies with high potential. As in 2025, the company with the best parameters indicated by the indicators of the Milano-Bicocca University has been awarded. It is Arterra Bioscience, a Neapolitan biotech company, whose strength lies in its relationship with universities and research centres, and which relies heavily on young researchers.

Before the award ceremony, a round table was held entitled 'Greenwashing, how to prevent and manage the risks'. A very topical subject was 'greenwashing', the misleading communication on the environmental side, which was finally regulated by the European Union with a directive, 2024/825 transposed in Italia on 20 February, and which will enter into force on 27 September next.

This is a real breakthrough to limit misleading communication and will be monitored by the Antitrust Authority: among other things, some important regulations of the Consumer Code will be amended.

The round table on the topic of greenwashing was attended by Lorenzo Solimene, partner of Kpmg Advisory in Italia and expert in sustainability and climate change; Cristiana Rogate, president of the consulting firm Refe, expert in communication and sustainability; and Alessia Pedrazzoli, researcher in banking and finance at the University of Milan-Bicocca and co-author of the Esg Observatory survey carried out by Plus24-Sole 24 Ore on companies in Piazza Affari.

How were the companies selected for the awards? The selection was based on companies that have participated in the last two years in the ESG Observatory realised by Plus24-Sole 24 Ore in collaboration with the Milano-Bicocca University. The ranking was then defined on the basis of three indicators developed by the university. The first is the ESG Awakeness Index, which measures the level of ESG awareness in formal company policies and commitments. The second is the Sustainability Monitoring Index, which assesses the ability to follow stated objectives over time through indicators, monitoring tools and defined deadlines. The third is the Sustainability Governance Index, which detects the degree of organisational oversight of sustainability, considering roles and responsibilities. The three indicators, expressed with values between 0 and 1, contribute to the final score through an average calculated over the last year of survey. The system aims to return a clear, transparent and comparable assessment, capable of measuring not only the presence of ESG principles in corporate documents, but above all their translation into operational tools and governance models.