“Adopting environmental friendly practices carries a huge economical convenience for companies” Gian Luca Galletti (Environment, Land and Sea Minister)
Agricultural global market is deeply changing. The raising popularity of biological cultivations and social knowledge about environmental impact of human activities, brought a trend reversal in customers behavior.
Indeed, just few years ago customers choose market products leading the minimum prize criteria, nowadays trends are the opposite.
New customer generations born and raised during the climate change era and developed a rising warning about sustainable resources use.
“Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development Our Common Future (1987)
Lately, low environmental impact products gained a large fame, let’s just think about how “cruelty-free” production and “ethical farms” are breeding worldwide. However, customers are sensitive either for ethical and sustainable criteria of agricultural productions.
Customers interest in low environmental impact and environmental-friendly agricultural products is growing.
How did economic worldwide asset became “greener”?
The green revolution started with the “green economy” rising: green economy is an economical asset which considers in planning the economic renewal objectives also product’s environmental and social impact.
This economical models, whose motto is “one planet one economy”, shouts loud the indissoluble bond between economy and environment. Sustainable development is here considered as a long term goal, which could be reached when worldwide governative bodies will apply green princeps to their policies: specific national regulations, environmental-friendly policies, but most of all “green” subsidies and public fundings are the available governative tools. So, the main goal of green economy is to set up a brand new “global governance” by supporting a social revolution in worldwide both social and economical policies .
In Italy, this revolution reflected on the huge success of “Slow Food”
“Slow Food is a global, grassroots organization, founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast life and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us.”
Introducing a “good, clean, fair and healthy” food, “Slow Food” changed deeply food market tendencies. Italian food market became independent from minimum cost competitiveness criteria, opening largely to low environment impact ones.
What does it mean for agricultural companies?
Companies who want to follow this new market tendence must renovate their production systems, through innovative and environmental-friendly cultivation techniques. The road to reach a brand new market competitiveness leads through sustainable resource use, waste reduction, smart energy consumption (increasing renewable resource use) and more. This road is taking italian companies into a greener future. All these actions are supported and funded also by PSR funds, which have a deep interest in sustainable development of italian farm companies.
Competitiveness means validation
This new market situation changed deeply agribusiness competitiveness criteria and spread a new definition of “production convenience”. Nowadays, this convenience criteria depends deeply on environmental respect, product quality and economical advantage. It means that a competitive company is a company who gained environmental sustainability certifications, like: Water Footprint, EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) or the one proposed by the VIVA Sustainable Wine project (promoted by Environment Ministry).
Companies earn several advantages from gaining these certifications: more environmental-friendly production processes, new advantage sources and a brand refreshing opportunity.
