Sustainability and Environmental Responsibility: the Noverim case

Choosing sustainability today means giving a gift to the environment and the future of our planet. We hear about sustainability every day but do not often ask ourselves what we can do to foster it. Today, big companies also have the task of guiding us in directions of ethicality and responsibility towards the environment. And that is exactly what Noverim has done, joining the Pollinate the future project by 3Bee and choosing to adopt a beehive by supporting beekeeper Alessandro Di Domenico, who looks after his bees in Lombardy.

We asked Roberta Mello Rella, Operations Director and Founding Partner of Noverim S.r.l. Benefit Company, how did the idea of joining a CSR project with 3Bee come about? For Noverim, the issue of 'sustainability' has always been an important theme. We were looking for a project that would allow us to make a concrete contribution, because it is in our company DNA to turn words into actions. We think that everyone, in his or her own small way, should be active and we thought it was important to set a good example, involving all the Company's stakeholders as well, and to do this we needed a reliable and established partner with a project in which we believed... and we found all this in 3Bee.

The positive impact that bees have on the entire ecosystem must be protected because it has a significant impact on our food supply, climate and biodiversity. This is why we felt it necessary to help beekeepers equip themselves with the useful technology to monitor the health of these precious insects. Furthermore, this CSR project allowed us, with a small gift during the Christmas holidays, to bring our customers and suppliers closer to us and make them aware of the issue of sustainability. We sent them a BOX with honey and other related products, explaining the reason and purpose of our gesture. This seemed to us a very subtle but effective way to involve and give a positive impulse to all our Company Stakeholders.

What role do companies play and how can they promote sustainable development? The role of companies is crucial, especially considering the impact many of them have directly on the environment. Nowadays there is more awareness than in the past of the importance of taking action to safeguard the planet, so consumers also tend to reward companies that make a concrete commitment in this direction. All companies, from the largest to the smallest, must equip themselves with the tools and practices to govern their daily work, taking care of the principle of sustainability and compliance. If they do it right, they will be rewarded both by the market, through consumer choice, and by the financial system through better access to credit and tax breaks.

Is all corporate social responsibility the same? How to distinguish an impactful action from a green action? Nowadays it is well understood by all how the value of a brand can be positively influenced by an overt focus on the principle of sustainability. The real problem stems from the market's ability to distinguish greenwashing actions, so-called 'façade environmentalism', from concrete actions with a real and measurable impact in terms of environmental sustainability. Many companies have sponsored major marketing campaigns that were meant to communicate to consumers a strong company commitment to sustainability, but which were then in fact not supported by concrete actions or changes in company production processes and practices.

This is why it becomes important to take even small but concrete actions. Establishing a sustainability path with clear and well-planned steps, consistent with the company's possibilities and business model, is the right direction. Consciously investing in changing business practices and processes, to spread a culture aimed at sustainability, even in small daily gestures, becomes basic. Let us think, for example, of the proper recycling of waste produced daily by a company and how even this so obvious gesture can instead have a significant impact on the environment. Words, deeds and actions must be consistent, this is the most important driver to follow when choosing an environmental impact action to take.

The idea for these projects often stems from the desire to convey a message to the outside world. How important is it to share a company's vision of sustainability with the entire human capital of the company? It is very important that all people involved in the life and day-to-day business of a company are aware of the goal to be achieved and how to go about getting there. For this reason, if a company wishes to take concrete steps towards a more sustainable system, it must involve and spread a clear and unambiguous message internally, so that everyone can understand it and know how to act - even in the small gestures of everyday life - in order to always go in the right direction and make the company's vision a reality.

3 practical tips for bringing sustainability into the company, for those who have not yet started the journey.. The first step in bringing sustainability into the company is to create, share and promote a Code of Ethics that communicates the company's values and objectives to all stakeholders and especially to employees and collaborators. This can be a good starting point for creating an internal culture of sustainability to guide the actions of individuals in their everyday work. The next step is to analyse suppliers and select reliable companies that are also oriented towards the principle of sustainability. Finally, it becomes essential to draw up the Sustainability Report. This is a very important communication tool for officially reporting one's impact and strengthening one's credibility in the market. The Sustainability Report makes it possible to make the positive effects of one's actions tangible.