Environmental incidents arise from corrosion, equipment failure and human error rather than from chance events such as fires and extreme weather: this is revealed by the Pool Ambiente Observatory.

It was noon on Saturday, 10 July 1976, when the failure of a reactor's safety disc at the Icmesa chemical plant in Meda caused the release of a cloud containing dioxin. So began the Seveso disaster, the worst environmental catastrophe in Italian industrial history. Fifty years on, a great deal has changed. We now have far more robust regulations on prevention (the Seveso Directive — a name that is anything but coincidental — has now reached its third iteration) and on corporate liability (applying the 'polluter pays' principle). Yet one figure shows there is still an enormous amount to be done: more than 70 per cent of environmental incidents can be traced back to causes that companies could have prevented. The estimate comes from Pool Ambiente, the co-insurance consortium specialising in environmental liability risks, founded in the immediate aftermath of the Seveso disaster.

Pool Ambiente has recently published an Observatory that combines statistical data from Ania — the association representing insurance companies in Italy — with real-world claims data from its member companies. The analysis paints a very different picture from the one most people imagine. First of all, contamination is not necessarily the product of illegal activity: of the 1,000–1,500 cases recorded annually in Italy, as many as 500–900 are attributable to companies that are fully compliant with regulations.

In an Italy increasingly exposed to the effects of the climate crisis, it is easy to assume that incidents are caused above all by flooding or other extreme weather events. The data, however, tell a different story: these causes account for just 2.7 per cent of cases. More than 70 per cent, by contrast, stem from structural corrosion (40.8 per cent), human error (17.1 per cent) and malfunctions and equipment failure (11.2 per cent). Three different causes that share one thing in common: companies can prevent them, through a preliminary mapping of sources and damage scenarios, targeted maintenance and adequate staff training.

"It is essential to highlight the high cost-benefit ratio of these measures: the preventive investment is often tens or hundreds of times lower than the magnitude of the potential damage," says Lisa Casali, manager of Pool Ambiente. "A classic example is the lining of an underground tank: an intervention costing a few thousand euros can prevent environmental liabilities worth hundreds of thousands of euros."

Precisely to capture the gap between perception and reality, Pool Ambiente surveyed 150 professionals from various sectors working across Italy. One in three believes that the main scenario for damage to natural resources is fire — which, in practice, accounts for just 10 per cent of environmental incidents. Conversely, only 13 per cent of respondents identify as the primary risk what is, in reality, by far the most frequent, accounting for 40.5 per cent of cases: leaks from underground tanks, basins and pipelines. This figure should not come as too great a surprise, given that the average age of a tank in Italy is 23 years and there are no national laws establishing safety criteria for existing single-wall underground tanks. A further 22.8 per cent of environmental incidents are caused by spills from plant areas or storage sites.

"Fifty years on from the Seveso disaster, we must understand that environmental protection is no longer merely a matter of bureaucratic compliance, but of technical and cultural risk management," concludes Lisa Casali. In the absence of international prevention standards, Pool Ambiente has convened a technical working group to develop a reference practice within Uni. In essence, Pdr Uni 107:2021 "Ambiente protetto" sets out a series of best practices that help companies reduce the likelihood of causing damage and, should an incident occur, limit its consequences.

A crucial element — also enormously underestimated — is taking out a specific insurance policy. Standard general liability policies cover third-party damages, but not gradual pollution (for example, a slow leak from an underground tank that may go unnoticed for a long time) nor the costs of remediating the company's own land. All costs that, by law, fall to the company even if it is compliant and there is no wilful wrongdoing.

By taking out an environmental liability policy, on the other hand, a company ensures that — in the event of an incident — there is a specialist operator on hand to intervene and restore the damaged natural resources. Activities that can last months and cost millions of euros. And yet, as the Pool Ambiente Observatory also reveals, in 2023 the dedicated policies active in Italy numbered just under 8,700, out of 974,000 potentially affected companies: a mere 0.89 per cent of the total.