Sustainability, Carlo Pesenti: « The business challenge is to keep the course »

These are reflux times for sustainability, times in which those who did it will clearly distinguish to repain the budgets a little and those who really think that reducing CO2 is a necessary step. «We chose this path in the late nineties, to define the strategy, the processes. And this road has created an extraordinary value. We can consider it a success factor. Starting, for example, from the most effective risk management, not only the climatic and corporate one, but also the social one. Attention to sustainability allows you to mitigate these risks and becomes an industrial opportunity, « he explains Carlo PesentiDelegated Councilor of Italmobiliare and President of the Pesenti Foundation. The group invests from coffee to perfumes. « We involve all companies out of four fundamental levers, governance and value chain, climatic strategy, health and safety and development of human capital, actively contributing to the achievement of the objectives set by the UN for the 2030 agenda. And management is also measured based on the achievement of these sustainable development objectives ».

It is therefore an industrial question, not only of principle. « But since they are increasingly voices globally, they question the objectives of sustainable development, we decided to start the Odyssey earth project, » he adds. A path that will be created by the Pesenti Foundation with the Corriere della Sera Foundation on several floors, starts on April 1 with a meeting with the writer Alessandro D’Avenia, the scientist Ilaria Capua, the astronaut Luca Parmitano and the Bocconi professor Stefano Pogutz. The choice of the title is not accidental « shipwreck in indifference: is sustainability still all affair? ».

It is the method that is innovative. The project was built with young people, like Giovanni, 26 years old and Greta, 24: « We tried to think what each of us can do to straighten the course », they explain. And not to be attracted to the song of the sirens who attempted Ulysses. « For sustainability – underlines Pesenti – one of the central points is to make the statements objective, through numbers, the measure. It’s not just a political opinion, it’s not all an opinion. We must continue on the path of sustainable development undertaken, which is correct even if perfectible. « The new EU CSRD directive, for example, is too granular, it could be started with less depth to facilitate the adoption of the model by companies ».

By the way, but do Europe only counts 9% on global warming? «True, but with this criterion every initiative seems too small to have an impact and never starts. Italmobiliare acts concretely, we exclude investments not in line with our responsible investment policy (negative screening) and we define for each company a program of creation of value and sustainable development, to be achieved through a detailed action plan « .

« There is also an emotional side of this transition ». Giovanni and Greta: «The Odyssea Terra project also includes a series of podcasts and digital content on social platforms. The next stop is already planned in conjunction with the De Bello exhibition at Gres Art 671 in Bergamo. An exhibition in which we will talk about the tragedy of wars ».