Founded in 1983 as a family-run workshop for the production of hair care products, today Davines is present in more than 90 countries worldwide, with offices in New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong. Which steps led the company to establish itself as a company of excellence in the world of cosmetics?

Our story began with a small research and contract manufacturing laboratory for hair care in 1983, so last year we celebrated our 40th anniversary.
It all began in Parma, thanks to my parents Silvana and Gianni Bollati. My mother created the products and my father drove around Italy in a van selling them. Over the next ten years the company became more and more structured, perfecting and consolidating its skills.
I returned to Parma in 1992, after specialising in Cosmetology in New York and studying at Harvard, looking to make my own contribution in defining a new strategy for the company, making the big leap from contract manufacturers to the Davines brand, on the professional hair care market. This was followed in 1996 by the launch of our cosmetics division for spas and qualified beauty centers. In the following years we built up our two brands on these two pillars.
I embarked on my professional journey at Davines in the Research and Development Laboratory, later taking on the challenges of marketing and international distribution, working my way up to my present position as president.
Sustainability has been the thread that has always guided our operations and especially our business decisions. In 2006 we started using the claim "Sustainable Beauty" for Davines, and since then our commitment has consistently increased. In 2016 we became a B Corp and even today our strategy is based on branching out from a regenerative vision of sustainability built on 4 "pillars": decarbonization, circularity, biodiversity and water.

Can you give us the key figures of Davines Group? (Turnover, employees, exports, international operations, locations in Italy and abroad).

To date we are present in more than 90 countries around the world with both our brands. Our first market is undoubtedly the USA – where we have a branch office in New York.
We closed 2023 with excellent results and a turnover in excess of € 260 million (preliminary figure), up 14 percent from 2022.
Today our community consists of more than 900 employees, of 40 different nationalities, based in our offices. In addition to Davines Group Village in Parma, we also have offices in New York, Deventer (Netherlands), Paris, Mexico City, London, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Düsseldorf.

The beating heart of the company is the Davines Group Village, a space on the outskirts of Parma, where architecture, design, agriculture and research come together. How is it structured? What activities do you carry out there?

We opened the Davines Group Village in Parma in 2018, as a concrete expression of our core values: beauty, sustainability and well-being. The architectural project was curated by Matteo Thun and Luca Colombo of MTLC, who came up with a structure that fully expresses the soul of our Group, the desire to put the well-being of our employees at the center and a place where ethics and aesthetics coexist in harmony and balance
The Village covers an area of 77,000 square meters, of which the building complex occupies about 11,000 square meters and includes spaces for offices, training, our Research and Innovation laboratory, production plant and warehouse. The Village structure was designed and developed based on the concept of "home" to emphasize our deep family roots.
The green areas of Davines Group Village were designed by Del Buono Gazerwitz Studio. Foremost among them is the Scientific Garden, our open-air laboratory surrounded by an Arboretum, a selection of plants from around the world representing our international community, to symbolically display the cultural richness and diversity of the Davines Group. Nature inspires our scientific research and facilitates soul-searching, offering opportunities for deep contact with nature and a feeling of well-being.

The link established by Davines Group with the environment has always been a mainstay of the company's policies. As of today, in fact, the company is a certified B-Corp (Benefit Corporation). In 2022, you signed the commitment with SBTi (Science Based Targets initiative) to limit global warming and reduce CO2 emissions. Which investments and policies have you planned to achieve these goals?

We have been a B Corp since 2016, and in December 2023 we achieved our second recertification, with a score of 123.5, well above the average of our industry, which hovers around 93.8 points.
As for the investment plan to reduce our CO2 emissions, it is currently being developed as a project that involves our entire company across each sector. To date, we are engaged in finalizing the submission process with SBTi (Science Based Targets Initiative) and our goal is to define, and then achieve, the CO2 emission reduction target.
The strategic policies implemented by our Group to achieve this target include optimizing logistics and using vehicles with reduced environmental impact, establishing a mobility management strategy, definitively abandoning virgin raw materials for the creation of our packaging, research and development work on ingredients from regenerative organic agriculture for our formulas, and self-production of renewable electricity through an agrivoltaics plant.
In 2022 we founded EROC, the European Regenerative Organic Center, in partnership with the Rodale Institute, which is located across the street from Davines Group Village in Parma. EROC is Europe's first research and training center on regenerative organic agriculture and will be the site of our research activities for the study of new ingredients grown according to the principles of this type of agriculture, which is soil-friendly and capable of storing carbon in the soil, and for the installation of the agrivoltaics system.

Which measures are you implementing for energy supply?

At the end of 2022, 99.7 percent of the electricity we consume came from renewable sources, partly self-generated, partly purchased through guarantee of origin certificates.
Our goal, up to 2030, is to increase the amount of self-generated renewable electricity thanks to the agrivoltaics system at EROC I mentioned before.
Regarding consumption of thermal energy in production processes, our goal for 2030 is to initiate a decarbonization process by ongoing research and study activities on the state-of-the-art technologies in this sector.

Besides cutting back emissions in your production processes, your products themselves are designed to reduce or even zero your carbon footprint. Starting in 2020, in fact, your online store will offer carbon neutral shipping to shoppers at no extra cost. How does shipping manage to be carbon neutral?

In light of our commitment, reducing and zeroing our emissions is a priority. In fact, we will measure and monitor 100 percent of our emissions from 2021 (scope 1,2,3). Where possible, we are committed to reducing emissions from our offices and production facility in Parma through energy efficiency and the use of energy from renewable sources.
Specific to our e-commerce in Italy and the U.S., we have put into place a system for calculating the emissions associated with each shipment, the amounts of which are neutralized through the purchase of Plan Vivo certified carbon credits related to reforestation and afforestation projects, which allow CO2 absorption through the support of two nonprofits, in Ethiopia and Mexico.

The products themselves, then, are designed to minimize the use of polluting materials starting with the packaging. Are there specific ecodesign projects for packaging? Which materials do you favor?

We design the packaging of our products according to the principles of circular economy. In 2011, we drafted a "Charter for Packaging Research" and faithfully follow the principles of ecodesign, by consuming less material, simplifying design, preferring recycled or renewable materials, facilitating the recycling of our packaging, and optimizing the space for the logistical distribution of our products.
Our goal is to abandon virgin plastics. Between 2014 and 2022, we avoided 903.3 tons of fossil virgin plastics through the use of recycled or renewably sourced plastics in manufacturing our packaging.
Since 2021, we have also been collaborating with Plastic Bank. In 2022, for every product sold through our brands, we collected the same amount of plastic from coastal areas in Indonesia, the Philippines and Brazil, totaling 779 tons. The same commitment has been renewed for 2023 as well. We believe that if all companies, of our size or even larger, made this commitment, the amount of plastic lost to the environment globally would be dramatically reduced.
How does the Davines Group combine competitiveness and sustainability in its strategy? Have your choices led to partnerships with other companies?
Today, more than ever, we believe that that of sustainability is the only viable choice to ensure a future for the next generations, in an increasingly challenging global and social context.
As a B Corp, we firmly believe in "pre-competitive" cooperation-which considers the welfare of our planet and people above profit.
In January 2022, we were among the founders of the B Corp Beauty Coalition, which has reached an international membership of nearly 90 companies. The goal of this coalition is to promote and improve sustainable standards, through the sharing of know-how and best practices, within the beauty industry.
At the same time, we have strengthened the scientific and cross-sectoral approach of EROC by forging several partnerships with major food companies. One example is our recent collaboration with Barilla on the "Bello e Buono" project, which aims to develop agricultural systems and practices that improve soil health and biodiversity.

Have you quantified the tons of CO2 not emitted into the environment each year as a result of your sustainability policies?

As reported in our latest Sustainability Report 22/23, by limiting the use of virgin raw materials to make our packaging, preferring recycled or renewably sourced material, we have avoided emitting 1,827 tons of CO2 from 2014 to 2022.

Finally, you have initiated carbon neutralization projects in order to neutralize the remaining emissions. Tell us how the EthioTrees project works?

Since 2021, we are committed to supporting two projects aimed at neutralizing the emissions that we are not yet able to zero through our efforts with Ethiotrees and Scolel'te. Both are Plan Vivo certified and are based on afforestation and reforestation activities that also benefit local people.
Specifically, Ethiotrees supports soil and forest regeneration in the northern region of Tigray (Ethiopia) and has expanded to the Dawsira area and neighboring districts since 2022. Scolel'te, on the other hand, supports reforestation and agroforestry in the Chiapas region of Mexico, while providing social benefits to the local communities.

Read in Italian