Let's start with the history of the company. When and how was Florim founded?

The company was founded in 1962 as Floor Gres, in the heart of the Sassuolo ceramics district, when the founder Giovanni Lucchese first introduced drawn klinker to Italy. The company would later become the first in Italy to produce white body single-fired tiles and among the first in the world in the production of porcelain stoneware. In 1984, on the death of my father, Giovanni Lucchese, I took over the management of the company, pursuing a policy of acquisitions and internationalisation. Following the acquisition of the historic Cerim company, Floor Gres and Cerim merged to form Florim.

Let's give some figures about Florim. How big is the company now?

In 2022, Florim had a turnover of more than 500 million euros. A key policy of our company is to reinvest a large part of our turnover in research and development every year and, in the last five years in fact, investments have totalled 330 million. The company has three production sites, two in Italy and one in the United States, in Clarksville, Tennessee. We employ more than 1,500 people, of which around 690 at the headquarters in Fiorano Modenese and another 350 at the Mordano plant, and over 400 in the USA. Since 2009, we have opened a series of Flagship Stores in major international cities of architecture and interior design such as Milan, Rome, London, New York, Abu Dhabi, Paris, Moscow, Singapore, Frankfurt, and Los Angeles.

Besides strictly industrial policies, such as the acquisition of other businesses, internationalisation, marketing, and research and development, your company is also strongly committed to social and environmental sustainability. How did this journey begin and at what point are you now?

Even though we are not legally obliged to do so, we started publishing a sustainability report back in 2008, at the time of the great economic crisis and when the topic of sustainability was not as strongly felt as it is today. Next spring the report will reach its sixteenth edition. Clearly the journey started a while back, although the real turning point came in 2020, when Florim also changed its legal status to become a Benefit Company. By taking this step, the company formally committed itself to pursuing not just profit as its goal but also the improvement of social and environmental conditions for both people and the planet. In 2020, we also became a certified B Corp company, the first ceramic industry in the world to do so.

For a company in the ceramics industry, which uses raw materials from mining processes and processes them at high temperatures, with high energy consumption, achieving high sustainability standards must be particularly hard and costly. Which measures and policies have you adopted to achieve these goals?

As far as production processes are concerned, we have adopted a two-pronged approach, firstly, we are committed to implementing an attentive energy management policy, and secondly, we have made the entire process sustainable by recovering natural resources. Since 2011, we have invested 58 million euros in green management. We have two cogeneration plants and three photovoltaic plants with a capacity of 12.3 MWp, installed on an area of 127,000 square metres. If the sun is not enough, we purchase energy exclusively from certified renewable sources. As for the actual production process, we recover 100 per cent of wastewater and 100 per cent of raw industrial waste.

Have you determined the environmental impact of these policies since investments in green management began?

Yes, we’ve calculated that between 2011 and December 2022, thanks to this commitment, we have stopped 129,388 tonnes of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere.

In production terms, these policies translate into the CarbonZero- lines. What are they exactly? And what does the minus sign mean?

The first step was to reduce use of natural resources, to use energy from renewable sources, and to make the production cycle more sustainable. But then we wanted to go further. We calculated, with EPD-certified data, the total CO2 emissions of our products during “their life cycle”, therefore both upstream and downstream of our process, until disposal. This data has enabled us to purchase Carbon Credits in quantities that offset of the CO2 emitted during the product life cycle.

How does the purchase of carbon credits work? How does this system reduce CO2?

A carbon credit represents one tonne less CO2 into the atmosphere. Each credit is certified by an independent body. By purchasing credits from the United Nations Framework for Climate Change (UNFCC) we can finance concrete and certified projects to reduce emissions. Specifically, Florim purchases credits that translate into projects for the generation of energy from renewable sources. From 2023, all series produced by the company are CarbonZero-.

The benefits for the environment are obvious, but how do these policies bring competitive advantages?

Florim products are increasingly used by designers, architects, and interior designers for the luxury sector, from hotel chains to restaurants, as well as homes, shops, showrooms, and offices. Florim brand ceramic products and surfaces have been used, for example, to create the Waterline Square luxury condominium in New York, the Burj Al Arab Terrace in Dubai, and the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. Today, thanks to an ever-stronger awareness of environmental issues, going sustainable is more and more attractive to architects and designers, who now look to the sustainability and not just the quality of the materials they use. Finally, doing things in a way that respects people and the environment translates into a return in terms of image. A recent independent study by Ales Market Research ranks us among the top 100 companies with the best reputation among Italians. This ranking surprised us for two reasons, firstly, because we weren’t running for this goal, secondly because we are practically the only company – among the top 100 – to be a B2B and not B2C company. Subsequently, Forbes Italy ranked us for three years in a row (2021, 2022 and 2023) among the top 100 Italian companies that can be defined as champions of sustainability. Florim also won first place in the international competition “La Fabbrica nel Paesaggio” (The Factory in the Landscape), promoted by the Italian Federation of UNESCO Clubs for having “strongly limited its impact on the landscape, while respecting environmental indicators, according to the canons of sustainable development”. While it is not possible to quantify the precise economic return of this, it clearly strengthens our reputation and enhances our competitive edge.

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