SDG Action Manager Training for Bologna Airport.

Education as the key to change management, to deliver the sustainable development goals of a major Italian airport.

Bologna Airport is one of the biggest airports in Italy. Sited at the heart of the Emilia region’s Food Valley and its automotive and packaging districts, Bologna Airport serves an area covering around 11 million people and some 47,000 export-driven enterprises with a strong international presence. In 2022, the airport ranked seventh in Italy for passenger traffic, transporting as many as 8.5 million people in 12 months (source: Assaeroporti—Aeroporti 2030 Report). Bologna Airport firmly believes in the value of sustainability as a strategic lever for the development of the airport system. Its ambition? To generate long-term value by creating an increasingly sustainable airport for all—for the local area, for passengers, for the airport community, and for partners.

Digit’Ed specially created a custom training course for the team at Bologna Airport, designed as a transformational experience to take their sustainability approach to the next level.

The course entailed 32 hours of in-person training, at the end of which participants could sit a final certification exam, in written and oral format, to qualify as SDG Action Managers registered with the national accreditation entity Accredia.

Attracting participants in cross-functional roles from all across the organization, the course was the crowning stage of a broader in-house training programme launched in January 2021 with the creation of the airport operator’s Sustainability Committee, tasked with implementing the sustainability strategy and building a sustainability-driven culture.

The training course was a natural step forward in the operator’s firm commitment to running a sustainable airport.

Today, Aeroporto Marconi di Bologna is one of the trailblazers in Italy to have attained Accredia certification—the first in the airport industry to have achieved the dual goal of promoting the personal growth of the course participants and unlocking opportunities for constant improvement in the most challenging fields of sustainability.

For Bologna Airport and its people, Accredia certification is the highest recognition of their training in SDG matters. The 15 SDG Action Managers can now make the most (both internally and externally) of their sustainability work thanks to their registration in the national Accredia database.

And with the added benefit that the certification is valid for the implementation of PdR UNI 125/22 Gender Equality Guidelines (certification attained by the group in September 2022) and a useful stepping stone for attaining ISO 30415—Human Resources Management—Diversity certification, which Aeroporto Marconi di Bologna plans to attain by the end of 2023.