The Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and Environment (ARERA) certified the excellence of Gruppo CAP, which ranked first in Lombardy and third at national level in the annual ranking of the Integrated Water Service Technical Quality and was assigned an award of €7 million overall.

This extraordinary result confirms Gruppo CAP among the most virtuous operators in Italy. The Company was the only one — together with another operator— to be awarded, in Italy, with reference to all the indicators set by ARERA, with no penalties, which attests to its technical excellence and capacity for continuous improvement. The Company shared this achievement with its main stakeholders by distributing part of the award to its human resources and the municipalities in the metropolitan City of Milan.

With Resolution 917/2017/R/IDR, ARERA introduced a system for assessing the technical quality of the Integrated Water Service, with the aim of concretely improving the service for users, taking into account the different conditions existing across Italy while also ensuring fairness among operators, transparency in controls and gradual application of the new rules.

The system is based on a set of indicators measuring service quality. Some of these indicators are fundamental prerequisites for accessing the reward and penalty mechanism; others define specific standards to be met by individual users, with possible compensation in the event of inefficiency; finally, there are general standards which assess the overall technical conditions of the service and determine the assignment of financial rewards or penalties (M1-M6 indicators: service disruptions, quality of water delivered, adequacy of the sewerage system, water leakage, quality of treated water, disposal of sludge in landfills).

Gruppo CAP achieved excellent results in all respects; specifically, €2,287,554 were recognised for performance on the M1-M6 macro-indicators  (service interruptions, quality of water supplied, adequacy of the sewerage system, water leakage, quality of treated water, disposal of sludge in landfills), while the 'Best in Class' award, certifying CAP's absolute excellence at national level consisted of €4,578,722.