Andrea Chiorboli, ACQUE DEL CHIAMPO’s general manager, outlined the strategies pursued by the Company, whose shareholders’ board features tanneries as well as ten municipalities based in Vicenza province, including Arzignano.
A more and more sustainable future, increasingly focused on environmental safeguard: this is the project planned and pursued by ACQUE DEL CHIAMPO S.p.A., – a Company that has been operating for over forty years in the valley bearing the same name, committed to the centralized and efficient management of a range of services such as water supplying, drainage, sludge treatment and disposal. A mission confirmed by the General Manager, Andrea Chiorboli, when we met him at the headquarters (a facility taking up an area of 155 thousand sqm.) in Arzignano. This town, home to one of the world’s most prominent leather clusters, is one the ten municipalities acting as the Consortium’s shareholders (together with Altissimo, Brendola, Chiampo, Crespadoro, Lonigo, Montecchio Maggiore, Montorso Vicentino, Nogarole Vicentino, and San Pietro Mussolino).
More specifically, ACQUE DEL CHIAMPO has grown into a reference point for the local tanneries, supporting 135 firms (the striking majority) when it comes to drainage as well. However, ADC’s leadership and its commitment at the service of the community and of the economic world are further confirmed by other figures: 190 employees, 10 million cubic metres of water supplied yearly, out of which 43% for industrial use and the remaining 57% employed in civil contexts; the industrial and civil aqueducts are long 19 and 900 km, respectively. On the other hand, the industrial drainage system amounts to 40 km, the civil one to 682 km. Economically spealing, the industrial and the civil divisions are managed separately, basically as if they were two distinct companies.
In May, the shareholders’ board appointed unanimously Andrea Chiorboli as the new general manager, a professional that has been working at ACQUE DEL CHIAMPO for over 20 years. Civil engineer since 1998, member of Vicenza province’s Association of the Engineers, 49 years of age, married with a daughter.
“The new president,” explained Andrea Chiorboli, “chose me to supervise a peculiar period, concurrent with the complications caused by the health emergency, that led to the appointment of top management figures, while succeeding in guaranteeing the firm’s operation with the launch of the projects the shareholders had suggested to the board of directors. I must thank Alessia Bevilacqua, mayor of Arzignano among these.”
Given your perspective, how do you evaluate ADC’s growth in the 2000s?
“In the period I joined, the Company was growing, changing its status from public body into service supplying company: in that moment, some opportunities came up and it was necessary to start afresh, both from a organizational perspective and operation-wise. It was a daily challenge; at the end of the day, skills are acquired without prejudice and without the presumption of knowing everything, by nurturing the ability to listen and understand. I must acknowledge the ADC’s managers I have met over the years, for they have given me the chance to learn and implement new, different strategies. In the end, the company’s all-round know-how, in terms, for instance, of regulations and authorizations, but also from a technical point of view, has played a pivotal role, considering that I dealt for years with the management of aqueducts, drainage systems and the related projects.”
As for this twenty-year experience, can you pick a relevant period?
“A pivotal growth moment, career-wise as well, dates back to 2013, when we faced groundwater’s PFAS contamination. It that case, it was necessary to thoroughly question the concept of drinkable spring water. That endeavour led to the implementation of a new philosophy, of new systems and skills. We started interacting more with external professionals, especially technicians working for other firms, as well as with other bodies such as local health authorities, the Region, ARPAV (Regional Environmental Protection Agency, editor’s note). We also realized that several countries worldwide were struggling with the very same issues. ACQUE DEL CHIAMPO was immediately committed the study of strategic concepts that resulted in the publication of the very first scientific, PFAS-related papers.”
What other challenges have you faced during your professional career?
“The passage from the management to the design department was a crucial moment, especially with regard to aqueducts and drainage systems. We designed several plants and carried out to the network expansion. After all, large-sized, renowned companies such as ours invest constantly in the infrastructure’s steady upgrading. Furthermore, we provided new activated carbon treatment systems to take care of PFAS. After that, I moved to the administrative division, that is, a task revolving around industrial users and concerning authorizations’ management and issue procedures. We handle approximately twenty tanneries and production businesses under the IEA (Integrated Environmental Authorization), each one entailing a specific impact on the territory: the required documents are issued by either local or regional authorities, referring to us for sewage supervision and management.”
Can you tell us more about your experience in the administrative department?
“Among other things, it helped me understand how companies monitoring is carried out, especially in terms of effluent quality. As a matter of fact, the system does not simply send invoices to firms or limit-breaking warning notices, but it provides customers with a solution to any issue. Thanks to our technical structure, we can put at the entrepreneurs’ disposal useful information for their businesses. This is a sector where you always “walk on thin ice”, it must be clear who is in charge and who is monitored, because we report to the authorities: it our duty to point out specific behaviours and, if necessary, to impose sanctions.”
Can you explain in what ways the Company support the leather district’s tanneries?
“In several ways. For example, take an enterprise that, for production-related reasons, has to employ certain articles, or that, sometimes, has to deal with contaminants and hazardous substances, either unknown or difficult to eliminate: it can turn to us and find engineers, analysts and experts, ready to put their professional skills at the customers’ disposal. In the vast majority of cases, they just require some exchange of information, resulting in the perfect collaboration between customer and service supplier, both committed to the same goal, that is, environmental safeguard. Everything takes place according to well-defined rules: “You contaminate, you pay for it”, a concept that has become quite common lately, a core value pursued since the Company’s establishment. Tanneries pay according to their pollution load. Or more precisely, rather than paying, tanneries actively take advantage of the depuration services.”
In the industrial sector, ACQUE DEL CHIAMPO is internationally acknowledged as a benchmark…
“The Company’s distinctive trait lies in its status as a service supplier that, besides setting specific rules, cooperates daily with local enterprises. This is the result of the choice made by the founding partners, who strongly believed in the idea that depuration is a responsibility that must fall on a full-fledged expert. This procedure is an integral part of the tanning supply chain: therefore, we have taken on this responsibility towards the environment and our customers, the latter committed to their manufacturing activities.”
What does the near future hold for ADC and for your appointment as general manager?
“We need to innovate, and we will see to it with our excellent in-house resources. We rely on a qualified team of technical executives; moreover, we have implemented an organization chart that features a multi-functional staff of internal professionals, working in the management office, so as to better meet external inputs as well, starting with the administration department. The division boasts a group of experts whose know-how encompass several branches of knowledge, like engineers, administrative employees and lawyers, who support the general management in carrying out new activities such as sludge testing, R&D projects, the aqueducts’ safety plan. The latter is a strategic topic for the future, that will give rise to crucial issues depending on new pollutants. Today we focus on PFAS, but, in the near future, we are going to deal with other substances. It will be our task to implement suitable technological solutions”.
www.acquedelchiampospa.it
Andrea Chiorboli
