Companies from the South beat those from the Center and North in green investments

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The South surpasses the Center and North in the bioeconomy. In the South, 23.6% of companies are “organic”, that is, they use biological resources including waste in their production, compared to 19.7% of companies in the rest of the country. And in the South, “organic” companies are even more innovative. 59.8% have invested or will invest in 4.0 technologies between 2017 and 2024 (compared to 56.3% in the Center and North). These are the conclusions reached by a study carried out by the Tagliacarne Study Center and Svimez on a sample of 2 thousand industrial companies, with a number of employees between 5 and 499.

Furthermore, 50% of the companies interviewed have adopted an “open innovation” model, i.e. open to collaborations with universities, customers and suppliers for structured growth of the territory and for the strengthening of production chains (compared to 46.1% of the Central North). This is also why the organic choice can be a powerful key to development for the South.

Precious asset for the development of the South

«In a phase in which the theme of the growth of the production-manufacturing base of the South is being proposed in a renewed way, the bioeconomy supply chain presents itself as a precious asset at a local level. Because it expresses a strong ability to create connections between different segments downstream and upstream of the production chain, such as agriculture, which traditionally constitutes an excellence of the territory, and the recovery of the related production”, underlines the general director of the Centro Studi Tagliacarne , Gaetano Fausto Esposito, who adds: «the dynamic profile of these companies in investments in the dual transition and the greater sensitivity to sustainability issues, also in social terms and attention to employment, must place this segment of companies at the center of policy to relaunch growth for the South, also through targeted incentive policies”.

Bianchi (Svimez): «Supply chains to support»

For the general director of the Association for the development of industry in Southern Italy Luca Bianchi «it confirms what Svimez has found in recent years regarding the development potential offered by the new sectors of the circular economy and the bioeconomy in particular for Southern Italy, a provided that the important experiences present today are accompanied by industrial and supply chain policies that are functional to making them more solid and encouraging growth also in terms of size. “Being “organic” makes companies more “smart”, not only in the South. The “organic” choice, overall, in the South as in the rest of Italy there is a powerful stimulus to invest in green and innovation on which 63.2% of national bio-economy companies have focused”.

Organic companies more oriented towards investing in digital

In the South, in fact, 63.4% of organic companies invested between 2017 and 2024 in processes and products with greater energy and water savings and/or lower environmental impact (compared to 37.0% of non-organic ones), in line with what occurred in the Centre-North where (63.2% against 35.2% in non-organic). This is also why 57.3% of these southern companies have invested or will invest in R&D in the same period (against 45.3% of non-organic companies). Being “organic” also translates into greater attention to workers not only from a social point of view, but also professionally. 61% of organic companies in Southern Italy started training courses for their employees in the two-year period 2017-2019 and intend to continue training activities also in the two-year period 2022-2024. A share that is even higher in the Centre-North (62.5%).