INWIT and LEGAMBIENTE together to monitor air pollution

INWIT’S DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE AT THE SERVICE OF NATIONAL PARKS
AND NATURE RESERVES WITH IOT

Rome 28 February 2023 – INWIT, Italy’s leading tower operator, and Legambiente, Italy’s most widespread environmental protection association, are teaming up to monitor air pollution. The partnership involves the use of INWIT’s towers to measure and monitor, by means of IoT sensors, various environmental parameters related to air quality, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter.

The natural areas targeted for air pollution monitoring will be: Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, Maiella National Park, Zompo lo Schioppo Nature Reserve, and Monte Genzana Alto Gizio Nature Reserve.

A partnership that highlights the potential of the collaboration between INWIT, which offers diversified services by exploiting the potential of its assets in a logic of “tower as a service”, and Legambiente, which offers its knowledge on the peculiarities of protected areas, to protect biodiversity and the more fragile ecosystems.

The partnership with Legambiente testifies to the added value of the ramified distribution of our towers throughout the country, in this case for the protection of biodiversity –declared Michelangelo Suigo, External Relations, Communication and Sustainability Director at INWIT -. INWIT towers are digital, shared and sustainable infrastructures available to mobile telecommunications operators and can host advanced IoT technology to monitor air quality and measure the impact of climate change, to benefit the territories and communities where we operate”.

“Pollution, together with the climate crisis, habitat loss and fragmentation, over-exploitation of resources, and the introduction of invasive alien species,” said Giorgio Zampetti, General Manager of Legambiente, “is one of the main threats to biodiversity and natural ecosystems.

This is why we decided to join INWIT in this new experimental monitoring that will allow us, on the one hand, to monitor air quality in various Italian protected areas and, on the other, to better understand the strategies and measures to be taken to address, first and foremost, the problem of air pollution, to protect biodiversity and achieve the goals set by the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030″.

The project starts from the awareness that Italy is considered a hotspot of valuable biodiversity that needs to be protected from the increasing risks posed by climate change. Biodiversity protection has been identified as one of the relevant issues for INWIT in its Sustainability Plan, with the assessment of infrastructure impact and opportunities reported in a dedicated position paper.