The main drivers for business competitiveness.
Digitization and sustainability are no longer two separate worlds, but two sides of the same coin. Innovation System and SustainMe know this well and work together to offer companies integrated and customized solutions.
Innovation System, with its expertise as a systems integrator, provides the technological tools needed to monitor and optimize processes, while SustainMe, with its deep understanding of sustainability, guides companies toward cultural and strategic change.
The collaboration between these two companies is something unique in the corporate sustainability landscape. By combining Innovation System's technical expertise with SustainMe's 360-degree approach, this partnership offers companies a comprehensive solution to:
accelerate the transition to a sustainable business model: combining innovative technologies and sustainability strategies;
increase competitiveness: by differentiating themselves from competitors and attracting new environmentally sensitive customers;
enhance corporate reputation: by effectively communicating their sustainability commitments;
optimize processes and decrease costs: by implementing the most suitable customized choices identified together with the company.
We interviewed the main actresses of this union, Elena, Nadia and Erika:
- Why did you choose to embark on this path that is SustainMe? What prompted you to create the project?
N.F.: I like the question because pathway is exactly the key word in this project. SustainMe began as an on-demand executive training program aimed at companies, but it has evolved in short order into a Hub of companies and professionals with vertical expertise in the various sustainability-specific topics.
A rapidly evolving path that of SustainMe, but a path also that of the companies we accompany in the sustainable transition.
E.F.: I have realized that in order to move forward in the ecological transition, that is, in resolving this context of global emergency and breaking through natural limits, especially on the business improvement side, it is necessary to bypass some stumbling blocks mainly related to business model inertia, fear of change and new arrangements, and lack of awareness on the part of decision makers of how to deal with sustainability issues, both from the training point of view but also from the technical and operational point of view: what to do, when to do it, and especially why.
No one, not even in the consulting field, is an “all-rounder,” especially in the field of sustainability, which is so systemic and encompasses virtually all areas of management of an organization and society as a whole.
So the impulse was to open up, open up the game and bring together people (and therefore, companies) with the same systemic view of sustainability but with complementary specializations. What we are interested in is being able to give a technical solution for each aspect, through a group of people who have the same passion to actively improve our habitat, and act conscious of our slice of responsibility, with ethics and with the goal of supporting the client but also and above all making them aware, responsible and autonomous in their future decisions.
E.L: The choice came because the SustainMe path has always been very inspiring and visionary with a completely different perspective of the world in general and more specifically of the aspect of sustainability both from the point of view of the environment and natural resources, economics and governance choices. Having such comprehensive skills as Nadia and Erika have in their fields of reference has made this choice become after a short time a real project that has grown more and more through perseverance until it has become a Hub that has made SustainMe its core outreach.
- What do you think are the benefits of partnerships and working closely with other companies?
N.F.: The UN 2030 Agenda allocates a Goal to business-to-business collaboration, exactly the 17thSDG “Partnership for the Goals”: sustainability is done together. Specific and complex skills are required, but at the same time coordinated by a systemic vision and management: and that is where we three partners, me, Erika and Elena, step in.
E.F.: The contamination of fields, of dynamics, the absolute enrichment that the exchange of viewpoints gives you, the thinking together of solutions, which are add value if they come from unseen keys. Only in this way, with the contamination of ideas, is systemic sustainability realized.
For this, there is a need for eyes from other fields, seeing things from similar and complementary perspectives, or conversely, problematizing aspects that we could not perceive from our perspective.
Not for nothing, the UN Agenda 2030 arranges as the last goal, Goal 17, precisely “partnership,” and it structures that goal completely differently from the others, precisely because it is a sine qua non we can achieve all the others.
Even the circular economy proposes partnership to us as the only way to restructure our supply chains, look for new solutions, new uses for our products and waste.
E.L.: Surely one of the strengths of this collaboration is given by the fact that each of the companies or professionals in the Hub “touch with their hands” on a daily basis the complexities with which companies come up against on a daily basis therefore I believe that concreteness is the watchword. We realized, first as Innovation System but later also as SustainMe, that only by collaborating between companies with similar but also diametrically opposed but at the same time complementary skills can we accompany the client in a complete and competent way. I was also confirmed that this is a winning strategy by attending the conference organized by Smact Competence Center in Padua, together with T2I and Intesa Sanpaolo last October 7 at the Order of Engineers in Verona.
- What can SustainMe's future plans be together with Innovation System? What can you aim for and what direction do you want to take?
N.F.: Digitization, data collection and certification will become increasingly relevant to the implementation of well-built sustainability projects: Carbon Footprint, LCA, Sustainability Report and other indicators if well organized and usable will also provide great support for the SustainMe consulting team.
E.F.: The main strand is the support in the creation of technical primary data absolutely important to calculate any environmental impact, either of the whole organization or of their products and services, related to LCA (life cycle assessment) methodologies and thus to activities related to environmental certifications, eco-design of products, etc.
Innovation System acts directly on the company's ability to manage and improve its energy situation, warehouse, air quality, thus a series of assets that are essential for the sustainability strategies of the companies themselves.
One can act together both at the strategic level, then, and at the level of digital development of new and improved capabilities for business management of all these aspects at the day-to-day level and future prospects.
E.L.: We are in the midst of the Green Transition, and from my experience in System Integration, I can say that digitization and sustainability are closely related issues so that we can get to have real energy efficiency, process efficiency, economic efficiency or implementation of strategic choices of consequence also impact reduction and social improvement. As Nadia and Erika also mentioned, working with the collection of real data that can be certified, we have the big advantage of already having a usual data base that can be used for analysis tools. Energy Diagnosis, ISO 50001, Sustainability Budgets, Carbon Footprint or integration with 5.0 are some of these examples. The direction is the one that the European Union is also showing us: a major impact reduction by 2030. I believe that by joining forces we can really do a lot!
- How do you think Innovation System can improve in the area of sustainability?
N.F.: Innovation System has always been a company projected on research and development of innovation in the service of sustainability, so it will continue to be there. It will be a physiological growth of Industry 5.0-oriented solutions, perhaps directly involving sustainability consultants to respond to concrete and evolving needs also in terms of regulatory and methodological obligations. The company's constructive attitude and visionary spirit foster valuable comparisons and exchanges that ensure long-lived business development in the direction of environmental, social and governance sustainability.
E.F.: Innovation System could broaden awareness of its digital impacts, and develop to a greater extent the transfer of technical knowledge to customers, with respect to the impacts and potential of their tool for implementing sustainability strategy. The path is already mapped out and underway, but this field is advancing rapidly, regulations are evolving, and Innovation System can truly become the technical contact for the management and optimizations of the more energy and technology aspect of the business.
E.L.: I think Nadia and Erika have already touched on several points of improvement that we are thinking about taking forward as a business entity. One piece that I would add, in addition to what has been mentioned above, is the idea of implementing AI in multiple applications also to allow for the simplification of data processing by consultants such as SustainMe and the eventual integration with one or more platforms created for writing sustainability documents. In our company, innovations are the order of the day and collaboration is a must have.
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