From VenicePost Monitor | February 28, 2016
Green Week starts in the Venices with a tour of 10 “Sustainability Factories.” Meetings and guided tours to tell about products, innovations and production processes under the banner of sustainability. Conclusion in Trento on March 6
There will be 10 Factories of Sustainability protagonists of the fifth edition of Green Week, the itinerant event to discover the new frontiers of the green economy-promoted by VeneziePost in collaboration with Lattebusche, eAmbiente, Confindustria Belluno-Dolomiti, Flormart, the floricultural event of PadovaFiere, and under the patronage of the City of Trebaseleghe and the Federation of Camposampierese Municipalities-that will kick off on Tuesday, March 1, 2016. A real tour, which, moreover, is already almost sold out, to get to know 10 of the companies from the Venetian regions that most distinguish themselves for innovative solutions related to sustainability, not only an ethical but also a competitive tool that allows them to win in global markets. The event will kick off on Tuesday, March 1, with guided tours and a series of events taking place in the Venetian region. In the province of Venice, for example, in Torre di Mosto, a visit to Magis, a benchmark company in the world of design, is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 1. Visitors will be able to learn about and appreciate how the qualitative thinking of the international designers who collaborate with the company is expressed in concrete projects that respect both people and the environment. And right here, in the splendid setting of the building that houses the company, a true small architectural jewel, will be the guest speaker Emilio Rigatti, bicycle traveler and author of Minima Pedalia, published by the Ediciclo publishing house, who will talk about his book and his relationship with the most ecological means of transportation of all: the bicycle.
Staying in the area, in the neighboring province of Treviso, there will be two world-leading companies participating in Green Week: Lauro Buoro’s Nice and Enrico Moretti Polegato’s Diadora. Nice, which is headquartered in Oderzo, will always be on view on the opening day in the afternoon at 3 p.m. Those who have not yet had the opportunity will thus be able to discover The Nice Place, the new social space open to contamination and knowledge transfer, another small architectural jewel that belies the cliché of a Northeast that is only a land of horrible warehouses that devastate the territory. It is thanks to companies like Nice, which have chosen to keep their headquarters in the territory, that development and sustainability are created based both on product research (which includes automation systems and low-energy solar power) but also on attention to the environmental impact of every business activity and aspect. The same can be said of Diadora, where instead a stop will be made on the morning of Thursday, March 3: here visitors who have managed to book will be able to discover the secrets of the first footwear at km0, made through in-house production, which has allowed the company to start a path of “responsible production” and eco-compatibility, in which, thanks to eAmbiente, the carbon footprint has been calculated and tracked, then certified by DNV GL. Another leading company that will be visited will be Grafica Veneta, in Trebaseleghe, in the heart of that Camposampierese area that was the first to start a path of reorganization of the territory in order to foster development and sustainability. In fact, the municipality of Trebaseleghe, where the famous printing company that has printed the biggest international best sellers is based, is aiming, together with the other 11 municipalities in the area, to constitute the first example in Italy of a supra-municipality capable of intervening positively in providing services to citizens, urban planning and metropolitan transportation policies, and broadband services, becoming a sort of “smart land” (as sociologist Aldo Bonomi defines it) at the European level. Thus, in Trebaseleghe itself, on the evening of Wednesday, March 2, two scholars of the caliber of Giancarlo Corò and Paolo Gurisatti will meet with local mayors to compare European experiences such as that of the Ruhr and those of central Veneto. Also in the vicinity of Trebaseleghe, in Villa del Conte, one can visit on Thursday, March 3, Lago, a factory built of glass and wood, where, according to the philosophy of its leader, Daniele Lago, everything is centered on people and not only environmental but also social sustainability.
The mountain theme certainly could not be missed, because sustainable manufacturing is at the center of the reflections that Confindustria Belluno Dolomiti has been placing for several years with the Green Dolomiti project. The delicate balance between mountains and manufacturing, in the spirit of Green Week, becomes here an element of mutual enrichment between even originally different cultures, that of protection and that of development, and is manifested by developing all the positive potential that such a dialogue can produce. The search for clean energy, of which hydropower in Italy is the main source, is investigated through a visit to the Ponte Mas Power Plant in Sospirolo. In the late afternoon of Thursday, March 3, moreover, Confindustria Belluno Dolomiti itself is organizing in Belluno the presentation of the book -2 Degrees by the eminent climatologist Gianni Silvestrini, scientific director of the Kyoto Club and president of the Green Building Council Italia; with him, the editor of La Nuova Ecologia Marco Fratoddi. Also in the province of Belluno, in Busche, on the other hand, we will visit the now legendary dairy production company, Lattebusche, which is able to weld the collection of milk from small mountain producers, thus keeping alive, even in a very difficult time for the dairy sector, a fabric of activity that is fundamental for the care of the mountain territory. Lattebusche, moreover, in addition to having already won in 2013 the Radical Green Award given during Green Week, was the winner of the Sustainability Award at the 2015 edition of the European Business Awards.
Green Week will devote great attention to the world of agribusiness production, both from the point of view of product quality and business organization. In the Padovano area, in Arre (Wednesday, March 2), we will visit Agricola Grains, a historical reality of agribusiness in the Veneto region, which still in 1991, the year in which organic farming was recognized, decided to invest in an ambitious project, abandoning chemical-type crops and becoming a well-established international reality in the harvesting and marketing of organically grown cereals. In the Vicenza area (Wednesday, March 2), on the other hand, the protagonist will be Cielo e Terra, the first winery in Italy to have introduced lean management, which helps eliminate waste even in the consumption of resources, thus reducing environmental impact. Quite a challenge for a company that has four generations behind it, which faces these challenges with innovative projects, also the result of collaborations with entities such as Area Science Park, and which is a leader in large-scale distribution with wine products characterized by an extraordinary quality-price ratio. So three days of meetings and visits that will help demonstrate how, in the Venetian region, sustainability is not marketing, but a daily commitment to innovation and production. And this first part will be followed from March 4 to 6 by a second three-day event in Trento, organized with the University of Trento, MUSE-Museo delle Scienze, the Edmund Mach Foundation chaired by Andrea Segrè, and Trentino Sviluppo-Progetto Manifattura. More than 100 protagonists and 30 appointments dedicated to the various themes of sustainability; speakers include other important names in sustainable industry, from Fabio Brescacin, president of EcorNaturasì, to Roberto Siagri, president and CEO of Eurotech, from Gabriella Chiellino, president of eAmbiente Group, to Gianluca Vigne, CEO of Trentino Progetti, to Alessandro Profumo, president of Equita SIM. The three-day event in Trentino will also see the presence of Agriculture Minister Maurizio Martina and Environment Undersecretary Barbara Degani.