Sustainability is the way to innovation and business growth. Energy, landscape, transportation, architecture, economics and sustainable development are increasingly intertwined.
This year’s Green Week delle Venezie (Feb. 17-22) will address these issues, entering places of excellence in green production. Venice, Trento, Treviso, Vicenza, Padua, Belluno: a journey to discover the excellence of the area and the different aspects of sustainability. “Sustainable development is the key turning point for business survival and growth,” notes Filiberto Zovico, Green Week editor and VeneziePost publisher. Beyond the rhetoric of green, companies face a competitiveness problem. And one of the main keys on which competitiveness is played is precisely sustainability.
It’s not just an ethical issue, then.” This edition of the event, which puts the enterprise at the center of the green revolution, will bring out all the latest from the point of view of technology and innovation, with a tour among the excellence of the Northeast, the “factories of sustainability.” “Seemingly marginal territories can be reborn thanks to the intertwining of manufacturing, culture, sustainability,” Filiberto Zovico stresses. The place of belonging can be an element of competitive help.”
Symbolic reference for the departure of this ideal tour among the factories of sustainability will be Venice, with the Mose, the largest hydraulic work serving the protection of Venice and the Lagoon ever built in Europe. An interesting challenge to understand and study. Why the choice of Mose just now when it is at the center of scandals and investigations? “Because beyond what happened, the Mose is and remains the most important hydraulic engineering work in the world,” Zovico clarifies. It is a cutting-edge work, an excellence to be known. From Venice we will move on a journey to discover the different aspects of sustainability, through companies and significant places of sustainable production.” Also central is the issue of waste, which finds its way into Green Week with one of the European excellences that Veneto has, Contarina of Treviso, now engaged in the new challenge of recycling the non-recyclable. Green production is the protagonist in two different areas, but unified by the culture of sustainability: one is the Camposampierese area where, in the municipality of Trebaseleghe, companies at the forefront of sustainability can be visited and where the fourth edition of the “Radical Green Award,” an award for the six most innovative companies in this sector, will be held.
The other area is Belluno, an industrial province where the theme of mountains and production will be analyzed from the experiences of environmental and cultural enhancement. Green Week will then conclude by returning to the Veneto region that is not just a land of sheds, but of great beauty, with a visit to the Euganean Hills Park in the province of Padua. “Green Week of the Venices” is a major event that looks with special attention to the involvement of young people from Italian universities to provide an opportunity for meeting, exchange and training. A select number of undergraduate students will have the opportunity to apply for the living grants. The proposed tour will allow students to participate in lectures and meetings with specialists and cutting-edge entrepreneurs who have made sustainability a competitive factor. The bus tour includes stops to visit the most innovative companies, learn about the technologies and products that will mark the future in different business sectors, from recycling to sustainable living, from heating to metal management. Businesses and landscape cannot stand apart, the synergy must be absolute to ensure the sustainability that is the focus of this year’s event. Here then among the highlights of this edition is urban greenery as a central element in landscape design. From this awareness comes the international competition “Flormart Garden Show,” presented by Flormart, the floriculture and gardening show, scheduled at the Fair in Padua, Italy, Sept. 9-11. The international competition and the Flormart exhibition at the Padua Fairgrounds will be presented as part of ” Green Week of the Venices.”
A challenge that is inextricably linked to thinking about the future of our cities and the need to reverse course to embrace more sustainable urban models. There are many aspects to be explored in “Green Week of the Venices”: six days of discussion, analysis, and knowledge so that the “Northeast bet” can be transformed into a winning business challenge, both from the point of view of competitiveness and sustainable development.
From: Il Corriere del Veneto, Feb. 16, 2015 – by Francesca Visentin