Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Denise RQ
I don't know you, but I believe in coincidences.
I think what happens to us in life is all but casual; let me explain.
1981: I graduate in Law, but I don't want to become a lawyer.
I enter into the commercial department of a big company: I'll deal with sales.
But after 14 years, the company decides to cut the whole sales branch.
Suddenly, I find myself with a team of 20 and no product to sell.
No fear, I immediately find another chance:
now I'll deal with corporate art and design items.
But in life, as well as in business, surprises are always around the corner.
And less than two years after,
my partner decides to manage sales directly.
So what does he do?
He doesn't renew the contract, and my best agent follows him.
Once again, I'm left with no products, and 19 people waiting for my decisions.
Well, I can tell you, if it never occurred to you,
that's enough for someone to panic.
But the way I'm made,
one day is more than enough to weep and moan.
I think, that's where one's true character shows up.
I'll tell you where I think my stamina comes from.
I'm the third daughter of a General of the Italian Army,
and I grew up with the motto, "Do your duty and shut up!"
On top of this,
I was an agonistic swimmer from 11 to 16 years old
up to 20 km a day, every day,
including on Sundays, because there were competitions.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
But when you lose, you never, even for a moment, consider quitting.
Indeed, Mondays you're there, in the swimming pool,
stronger and more determined than ever.
One day I said to myself, "Well, Susanna, it's the second time
someone steals your product and you're left with no job.
And at that moment, something clicked: I have to make those products myself.
Except, almost any promotional item is made in China.
I really have to make something one-of-its-kind,
unlike anything else.
I want no competition.
It has to be the opposite of the same old gadget.
- But what, exactly? - And here's the case.
I'm in a bar.
A person I barely know just gave me a notebook.
Nothing special, but I open it and I read,
"No tree was cut to produce this notebook."
A light, a flash stroke me:
a seemingly deep hidden memory I didn't even remember to have.
1982: I'm on a train compartment.
By my side, two university professors are talking, and I'm listening to them,
"We're all sitting on a huge garbage pile.
It's a huge problem
for the future generations and for the environment,
and we absolutely have to start thinking to do something.
Certainly, waste disposal business will be a thriving one, tomorrow."
Gosh, at that moment, these people were talking about the future.
I was 23, but they were also talking about me.
Well, 16 years later, the dots magically connected.
The notebook, the train - I found my way!
I will produce design, "Made in Italy" items,
but they'll only have to be produced with recycled or reused materials.
Attached to them, there will be a story I can tell
through the materials they're made of.
I will brand them "Communicating Objects."
But you know, we were in the late 90s.
Aside from recycled paper and recycled leather,
there wasn't much to be found on the market.
So what will I do?
Well, I try to ask my customer,
"What do you usually throw away? What's your waste?"
And I'll try to make unique objects for them.
Well, over the years, we really made a lot of communicating objects.
I brought some of them here today.
I visited a customer, it's a tomato canning company.
As usual, I ask, "What's your waste?"
And they answer, "Dry tomato skins."
Gosh, how will I give a second life to a pile of tomato dry skins?
Well, I know Lorenzo, a designer
running an artisanal business and making beautiful wax items.
"Lorenzo, what about putting my dry tomato skin
inside your wax objects?"
"Look Lorenzo, tomato dry skin is so beautiful,
your objects will look even greater, you will see."
And between bee wax and dry tomato skin,
flower pots are born, tabletops, and candles.
Now, instead, I'm visiting a marketing and communication manager
who works for a dealer of a big car brand.
She has to prepare some gadgets,
and she likes my idea to use recycled and reused materials.
She has a shoestring budget.
On the other hand, she talks about 100,000 pieces.
I ask the same question: what are your waste product?
She said, "Components of decommissioned cars."
Colored car lights immediately come to my mind: red, orange.
And so I think, let's make a pen. She likes the idea.
The car light recycled material is purchased
using the customer's indications.
But then, how can you make a pen?
A mold for a pen's body, back then, cost 70,000 euros.
Quick math: 100k pieces, €70k: 70 cents just for the mold,
while 18 cents buy a finished Chinese pen.
That's unfeasible, nobody would buy them.
But we were in the early 2000s.
Italian manufacturers are complaining,
decimated as they are by Chinese competition.
I wonder: how many underused molds can there be in our territory?
The research brings me to Gigi.
Gigi is a pen manufacturer, and he has a mold.
I go to Gigi and say,
"Gigi, I give you the plastic, you put the mold,
and together we'll make a pen."
And combining my plastics with Gigi's mold,
pens are made out of car lights.
Together with Gigi, I re-evolution his pen.
Well guys, I love this business so much.
So let's recapitulate --
(Applause)
Let's recapitulate:
I can recuperate unused molds among local businesses;
I can slash down the cost of materials
by taking advantage of recycled and reused materials;
I help local craftsmanship;
and I make unique objects for my customers.
Everyone is winning!
Of course, as you all can imagine, this hasn't been an easy path to take.
But what pushed me to endure
was the awareness I was doing a healthy business.
Plus, I wasn't polluting the land I lived on.
Indeed, I was somewhat helping to remediate it.
So despite the hardships I went through,
I love this business more and more every day.
Without even noticing it, I created a circular economy.
Let me explain what it is -
not because I'm an economist but because they also explained it to me.
A circular economy is a self-regenerating one.
It's a system where all production lines are conceived to make sure
that someone's waste is someone else's resource.
Well, I did it for 20 years:
unconsciously, at the beginning; now, with more and more awareness.
For I have up cycled tomato's dry skins,
namely I reused a waste material
and through a creative process I managed to create another material.
What did I do with pens, instead?
I merely re-cycled them,
following the supply chain of car lights' reuse and recycle
which, through a new productive process, I used to make my pens.
But what am I actually doing at the end of the day?
With my objects, I'm extending a material's life;
but eventually, this doesn't save them from the landfill,
or they'll end up in the recycling supply chain.
After 20 years, I want to do something more.
But what, exactly? And here's still the case.
In 2012, I got a phone call in the office.
Cristina saw my objects at an exhibition.
She loved the idea and wanted me to design her promotional items.
Cristina is the handy woman of Vittorio.
Vittorio has a company that manufactures graphite electrodes.
Of course, objects have to be made with their own waste.
And their waste is graphite powder.
Wait, waste? Graphite powder? It's so beautiful to me.
I assure you graphite powder looks gorgeous.
I can only see it as a prime material.
And hey, we all know that pencils are made of graphite.
And pencils are quintessential promotional items.
Well, Vittorio used to dispose of 12 tons a year
of "inevitable" waste graphite powder.
At a considerable cost for his company, by the way.
Do you know where does graphite powder usually end up?
In a landfill, directly underground.
It used to be a hopeless waste product.
Well, we absolutely have to come up with something.
I start looking for a "Pencil Gigi."
And little did I know
no one manufactures pencils in Italy any more.
I immediately made up my mind
to become Italy's only pencil manufacturer.
And of course, my pencil--
(Applause)
And of course, how is my pencil going to be?
Innovative, distinguishable from any other pencil;
-it's made in Italy, for goodness sake!
It has to be perfect.
As you might have guessed by now, I'm a networker by nature.
I knew Andrea some years ago, we did some works together.
Andrea is an expert in productive processes,
and he knows very well the molding materials.
Then Marta, an architect and a fantastic designer.
And working with them, after almost a year of research,
"Perpetua la matita" was born.
(Applause)
Perpetua is a real re-evolution
because for the first time, we did something that didn't exist before:
we might call it self-cycling!
Self-cycling consists in self-consuming the waste product.
So, Perpetua users recycle and consume, by writing,
15 grams of graphite.
Do you know why are pencils made of wood?
They usually have two glued wooden shells in order to protect the graphite mine,
which stains your hands, and it's very fragile.
Well, there's no wood in Perpetua's body:
it's 80% made of Vittorio's graphite, and it doesn't stain your hands.
And what about the pencils with an eraser behind?
They have a tiny metal collar,
whose job is to tie the eraser to the body.
Well, Marta didn't like that collar.
A tragedy: my pencil will not have that ugly collar, period. OK.
And I hated the glue, by the way, so we were on the same wavelength.
Poor Andrea's tests after tests.
Eventually, we managed to fuse the eraser directly to the graphite body.
Graphite and eraser glued in a single body.
And by the way, did you ever try to write with a pencil?
The mine gets broken and no sharpener is around?
Perpetua solves this problem for you
because it writes even without a sharp mine.
You can sharp it later on, if you feel to.
And then, when I get angry
- my coworkers know that, they're in the last rows -
I can take my Perpetua,
throw it on the ground and pick it back up.
Perpetua was made in such a way it doesn't break when it falls down.
Thank you!
(Applause)