Crisis management

A crisis is defined as a very critical unexpected situation for an organisation. Within the large and complex scope of its 'core' activities, Eni has shaped and organised crisis management processes based mainly on studying, classifying and preventing risk situations. For this purpose, it has set up a Risk Control Committee, which performs recommendational and advisory duties in scenarios and sustainability and investigates issues of integration between strategy, evolutionary contexts and business sustainability in the medium to long term. It supports top management in evaluations and decisions related to the internal control and risk management system by way of the quarterly review of key risks, including ESG risks, and in the approval of regular financial and non-financial reports. 

Due to Eni's large presence in the world and the complexity of its business activity, in the event of an emergency escalation, specific Committees are set up to follow all phases of the critical event from the outset in order to mitigate the various effects that may arise; depending on the nature of the crisis (safety and environment, security or health) the relevant Committee is made up of all those people who, in top technical and non-technical positions, belong both to the business lines involved in the crisis and to transversal functions. This results in a management process aimed at reducing the impacts that accidental events may have on the safety of people and the continuity of business activities, through the adoption of measures to protect the company's tangible and intangible assets, both in preventive and reactive terms. These actions must be accompanied by a communication that has to be given rationally, responsibly, transparently and sensitively towards the interests and reactions of all those involved in the crisis so as to relate it to the outside world in a balanced, timely and authoritative manner, giving high priority to the interests of the public concerned. 

Eni has a procedure governing crisis communication applied by Eni SpA and assessed as a best practice for subsidiaries. The procedure defines the methods for managing external communications in emergency situations, which also determine the roles and responsibilities of the corporate figures involved, since communication with all stakeholders is extremely important in order to adequately manage the crisis situation and overcome it.

Therefore, when a crisis happens, external communication resources must be deployed at the Integrated Crisis Centre to support the Committee where all the decisive players in the management and response process meet; documents, images and videos, which are uploaded and updated in a timely manner, are also provided so as to make positions and corporate statements available online. While news on the evolution of the crisis is checked, Eni contact persons become involved to properly inform about what is happening, and spokespeople are identified; these are people at Eni in top, highly specialised positions who are able to speak to the media presenting information, insights and the Company's official positions. A specialist emergency communication team is set up to support all the communications which are necessary for crisis management; this is always in synergy with the technical functions of the Committees, if called upon.