Who chose EPDItaly tells its story: Manini Prefabbricati Spa

Today, the topic of ESG and sustainability are key elements of those who intend to operate transparently and ethically. Are these aspects that you also put at the center of your business strategies?
The topic of ESG and sustainability in general are certainly issues that support the key strategies of Manini Prefabbricati, which consciously chooses to be a sustainable partner in the industrial construction market.
This year Manini Prefabbricati published its fourth Sustainability Report, covering the year 2022.
The decision to voluntarily produce a non-financial document, despite not being listed on the stock exchange, has become increasingly central to the company’s policies in recent years.
It is a choice that has been rewarding over time, not only because it is in line with the founding values, but because it has been shared by all those who collaborate in various capacities with Manini Prefabbricati and who passionately follow the social and environmental mission pursued.
In particular, in this historical moment in which the devastating effects of climate change are beginning to be evident, it becomes cogent to support a transition to a more sustainable model of development: a transition that is also fair and inclusive and that takes into consideration the effects that the various conversion processes in the various sectors then have on people. In fact, choosing to be sustainable means changing one’s habits, changing the traditional linear economy system to a new circular-type model. A new example of sustainable economy, proactively applied that, while maintaining the high quality standards of products and services, now established, aims to significantly reduce the amount of waste generated by production activities, to manage with full consciousness the residual waste generated by daily operations and pays particular attention to the choice of material and immaterial resources to be put into its processes, through a sustainable management of its supply chain.

You were a bit of a trailblazer for your industry and started your own journey through EPD. How did this choice come about and why?
That’s correct, we were the first in our industry to draft EPDs and this, as you can well understand, required a considerable effort and investment of resources, however, it turned out to be a compulsory step because it’s one thing to talk about sustainability, it’s another thing to measure it.
As a company that, for a long time, has chosen to certify its Quality and Environmental Management Systems, we believe that in order to achieve certain goals and objectives, oriented towards continuous improvement, processes must be measured and monitored.
EPDs, precisely, represent that measurement tool that enables us to understand in an official and unambiguous way the performance and related environmental impacts of our products, allowing us to communicate them to the reference market, but above all, they provide us with the critical bases on which to weigh the choices of sustainable improvement of our solutions, aimed at a market increasingly oriented towards the voluntary certification of energy-environmental protocols (LEED, BREAM, WELL, ITACA).

EPD was only the first step on a virtuous path towards sustainability. What do you have in store for the future?
To tell the truth, Manini Prefabbricati has been on the path of sustainability for several years already, when in collaboration with the University of Perugia a software was developed to calculate the Carbon Foot Print of every single prefabricated product.
The EPDs developed in 2021 and validated in 2022 certainly constituted a further step, as did the subsequent C.A.M. product certifications, relating to the recycled, recovered and/or by-product content in our products, achieved to cover all our production facilities and today increasingly in demand as a demonstration of an approach to a circular business economy.
Other very important sustainability milestones have seen us play a leading role in the realization of an infrastructure project for the municipality of Gonnesa in Sardinia. Specifically, we refer to the construction of a bridge with pre-stressed reinforced concrete (prestressed concrete) elements and fiberglass reinforcement, replacing traditional steel reinforcement. This technology, in addition to placing us as the first in Europe in the realization of such a work, allowed us to overcome those limitations still characteristic of construction. Greater advantages in terms of safety, durability of the work by limiting its future maintenance as much as possible, and last but not least, the possibility of being able to protect primary resources such as fresh water to the advantage of sea water, the use of which would be possible thanks to the absence of steel reinforcements inside the structure.
The milestones achieved and recounted, in a nutshell, represent only a few stages of the sustainability roadmap plotted by Manini Prefabbricati, many dates already set will still see us busy in the coming months and years, for example, in December we will be present at COOP 28 in Dubai, we will soon go into validation with new product EPD specifications, so that we can be increasingly responsive to the demands that the market makes on us.
For the EPDs already in place, however, updates are already planned that will take us to the second round and the publication of more sustainable products with lower environmental impact.

What are the main benefits gained from publishing the Environmental Product Declaration? What are the impacts on the end consumer?
The Environmental Product Declarations have undoubtedly represented an opportunity to be able to turn to introspective analysis, aimed at gaining awareness and assessing the level of sustainability of its products along all the phases and processes that accompany them throughout their entire life cycle.
Publishing our own EPDs has undoubtedly offered us greater visibility in the market, especially to those Clients who are attentive to ESG criteria and oriented to certify their properties in accordance with energy-environmental protocols.
It should also be pointed out that the verification of its EPDs performed by a third-party Certification Body and the subsequent publication in a well-established Program Operator, such as EPDItaly, offers the end consumer an additional guarantee in addition to the well-established guarantee of the products and services we provide.

How important do you think the presence of Italian sustainable products is within a Program Operator that makes international networking one of its strengths? Do you think EPDItaly can help spread the culture of product sustainability?
Ecological transition in its broadest meaning, technological innovation and a corporate policy, clear and transparent, unquestionably represent the values that distinguish modern sustainable companies and that by their actions contribute to increasing the value of the National and International business fabric.
That said, we consider it indispensable to collaborate with a Program Operator such as EPDItaly, which plays a networking role of international caliber, through the dissemination of its clients’ EPDs and the constant promotion of those key values espoused in full by companies that promote sustainability, including Manini Prefabbricati.
The company, aware of the global challenges, continues its commitment and contribution by working every day in order to constantly monitor and improve not only the environmental impact related to its own activities but also those of the value chain, so that it can identify the areas on which to intervene first.