This was the start of the conversation with Giuseppe Rebuzzini, CEO of the company representing the operational arm of MET Group in Italy and that in 2020 has seen its volumes and turnover grow by 15%, doubling its corporate clients and launching the supply of electricity and gas to residential customers.
Source: Quotidiano Energia
How was 2020 for you?
It was certainly the most difficult year of my professional life. Our business underwent a sharp downturn due to last spring’s lockdown just when we were ready to take off, imposing a throughout reset of ideas, plans and expectations, and at the same time causing considerable financial damage. It has not been an easy way out, however thanks to the dedication of our team and recovery of consumption in the second half of the year and, why not, a bit of luck, we managed to limit the damage and return to growth.
What are the plans for 2021?
We are thinking about growth once again, that is setting out on a path leading us to become one of the top 10-15 operators in the national energy market.
How are you going to achieve this?
There are three pillars to our growth: customers, optimisation, and sustainability. Customers are simply our daily measure of how well we do our job. Increasing the number of counterparties who trust us, providing them with a timely and dedicated service, and solving the problems that each client may experience are the cornerstones of our strategy. This is enhanced by our recent entry into the residential market, which on one side involves more standardised products, but on the other requires increasingly sound and high-performance systems and procedures. To serve our market we need the second pillar: a constant – and often exhausting – exercise in optimising all our activities. In 2021 we have taken key steps in this regard, reorganising our gas sourcing process – we have become a shipper at PSV since 1st March –, bringing our billing, back-office, credit management and portfolio management systems up to speed, and setting out the next steps, including the redesign of our website and communication platforms we have in place.
What about sustainability?
Sustainability is the third pillar of our strategy and, at the same time, the framework within which we operate. Sustainability is primarily about ethics, both personal and professional. Then comes the attention to the environment. For us, all this is reflected in our green electricity and natural gas offers, in our business of selling and installing charging stations for motor vehicles, which we mainly offer as a service to our customers in partnership with Sofisolar and the manufacturer GEWISS, and in our support for energy efficiency initiatives.
Can you give us some tangible examples?
In addition to the charging stations, we are particularly proud of our 100% green energy supplies which have enabled us to get in touch with some major clients, such as San Patrignano and Fippi S.p.A, and of the contribution that we can make to environmental protection projects thanks to these 100% green supplies. Through the CO2-free supply to our clients we have decided to fund an ambitious reforestation project in Latin America, the Guanaré project in Uruguay. Just think that all our gas and electricity offers for residential customers include the green component.
On the production side from renewable sources, do you have any plans?
Not in Italy yet, for the time being. However, MET Group is developing projects for hundreds of MW of solar and wind power elsewhere in Europe: the breakthrough of renewables in Italy is only a matter of time.