SECOND EDITION / FIERA DI PADOVA 18-19-20 MARCH 2020

PRESS RELEASE NO. 6 PADUA NOVEMBER 2019

At Green Logistics Expo, a conference organised by the LIUC Business

School LOGISTICS BUILDINGS AS NODES IN THE

NEW GREEN ENERGY NETWORK "Logistics & Real Estate: where are we at?"

A new rating model to assess warehouses In his latest book, "The Green New Deal", Jeremy Rifkin calls it the "Renewable Energy Internet" which is converging with the “Communication Internet", in turn linked to the "Mobility and Logistics Internet".

But what exactly is meant by the Energy Internet? For Rifkin, it means that "existing and new buildings - residential, commercial, industrial and institutional - are transformed into zero-carbon energy-efficient smart nodes and networks embedded in an Internet of Things matrix". Lastly, it means they will no longer be "private spaces … but rather actively engaged entities sharing their renewable energies with one another at the discretion of their occupants".

But is Italian and European real estate ready for this transformation into "nodes in an energy network"? Taking stock of this and other real estate related aspects at Green Logistics Expo will be Fabrizio Dallari, lecturer at the Castellanza-based LIUC, during a conference entitled "Logistics & Real Estate: where are we at?" to take place on Thursday 19 March from 11.00. As Dallari discloses in advance: "For several years now, Distribution Centres have been at the centre of new investments, not just in real estate, but also in automated product handling and storage systems. Since the early 1990s, the characteristics, type of construction and functional layout of Distribution Centres have changed greatly. During the conference, we will be presenting for the first time the results of a survey involving Italy’s more than 450 Distribution Centres and we will be discussing the evolution of today’s phenomena with leading companies on the Observatory's Advisory Board, such as Conad, Coop, Esselunga and Italtrans." Largely driven by e-commerce, real estate throughout Europe is continuing to grow at pre-crisis paces, with a reduction in vacancy rates. But has there been a parallel growth in the quality, particularly environmental, of the buildings? For Dallari, the improvement in energy efficiency is also a sign of the increase in investments and the theme is being discussed ever more often "both from a financial point of view given the consumption and relative costs and in terms of the environment. In logistics real estate in recent years, there has been a significant growth in the number of sustainability certifications, such as for example LEED, BREEAM, ITACA and many others. These rating systems, well developed in the English-speaking world, enable the performance of sustainable buildings to be assessed by attributing a score to various aspects associated with energy and water consumption, the interior environment, pollution, materials and waste. With respect to the rest of Europe, there are still only a few warehouses

SECOND EDITION / FIERA DI PADOVA 18-19-20 MARCH 2020

in Italy with these environmental certifications, but the trend is changing greatly in light of the importance of environmental aspects on the agendas of Italian businessmen." Those taking part in the conference will receive a free copy of the volume "Logistica 5.0: magazzini di qualità per servizi di eccellenza" ("Logistics 5.0: quality warehouses for excellent services", in Italian), edited by researchers at the LIUC Business School’s Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management.

Info: Franco Tanel Green Logistics Expo Press Office Mob: +39 335 5954981 mail: ftanel@francotanel.it