Davide Bollati (Davines) protagonista delle interviste di ItalyPost e auxiell

The company was founded by my parents in March 1983, and today we are an international company present in about 80 countries. Our main markets are the United States, Italy, all of Europe, and North America. Since 2005, we have aimed for sustainable development, first instinctively and then more structured. Now sustainability is the strategic heart of our company. Our corporate purpose is to do our best for the world, generating good life for all our stakeholders through ethical beauty and sustainability. Since 2016, we are a B Corp, a benefit corporation. We compete for higher scores in the B Corp world. After materiality analysis and footprint awareness, we tackled issues like energy. We are undertaking an agrivoltaic project for complete energy self-generation, 5 megawatts, at our European organic agrivoltaic center in collaboration with the Rodale Institute. We are their European partner. On 17 hectares, we are moving upstream our supply chain for raw materials, with a goal of 100 ingredients in 10 years for our 500 product formulas. We are waiting for permits; there is a legislative gap in Emilia-Romagna. We hope for a landscape-friendly project. We also have a plastic project: we buy plastic credits to recover 10 times our plastic footprint from the environment, focused on Indonesia, Philippines, and Brazil. These are the most important projects among many, under our strategy of decarbonization, biodiversity, and circularity as three pillars.

Well, certainly, those who pollute... A company today that wants to grow and give itself development prospects, in my opinion, can and must do so with a very narrow corridor: having a virtuous relationship with its stakeholders, especially the environment. We know the condition we are in; we have already experienced some crises. The asbestos one is one of many. Now we are beginning to understand that the next issue will be water, an increasingly crucial theme. On these issues, we need to work in the medium-long term, with long-term infrastructural planning. It is a fact that administrations and laws always arrive a bit late. So I would say it's not just about respecting laws, but about anticipating times and responding to a certain corporate conscience or purpose, which in the end gives you returns. Because today consumers and markets are willing to recognize virtuous companies on these issues, and sometimes even pay a price premium. But in the beauty world, it's not easy to just say we are sustainable because the consumer also wants results. For example, we have different brands. In some cases we find the balance between performance and sustainability very well; in some cases less. When we don't find that balance, the market sends us a message saying 'ok, but we also want the product promise to be kept.' Sustainability must be accompanied by other things, certainly.

Well, there are two themes: one is experimentation and scientific research. We start from 80 years of Rodale Institute history, but measurements are different here. Moreover, we have opened up to other companies even from other sectors, not just beauty. We created a beauty coalition among all B Corps, so we are very available to carry forward projects in cooperation, in pre-competitive partnership with other partners of the beauty industry. That's the first thing: experiment and research, and then certification. On the topic of measurement, it's normal that we want to improve ourselves, because sustainability is a journey. Measuring ourselves allows us to say 'today we are here, tomorrow we want to be there, one step more.' It's motivating, like when you want to lose weight, you check the scale. If you don't measure, you can't say you've improved.

Well, first of all, we have this agrivoltaic project that is very important to me, especially regarding permitting. As for internationalization, since the beginning of the year we opened the German market directly, so we now have 7 subsidiaries. We plan a couple more, maybe one per year. I would like to develop Asia more, because so far we have been timid. It is a basin of half the world's inhabitants. We currently have 10% of revenue in that area, but without neglecting our important markets in North America and Europe. So the strategy is to go more direct, have more subsidiaries in North America and Europe, and have Asia as an expansion frontier in the medium-long term.