Katia Carlucci: Loccioni is a company which has specialized for about 45 years in various activities that vary considerably, as research, innovation, measuring and testing, energy and connecting. Is there a red thread that connects them? How do you manage to operate with all these activities at the same time?
Maria Paola Palermi: The red thread that connects all our activities is metering.
We have over these 45 years developed very advanced expertise in the development of systems and instruments for measuring in connection with quality controls and monitoring. We apply and specialise this expertise in order to improve the quality of products and processes in different industrial sectors. Our customers and partners are world leaders in their markets, from automotive to home appliances, to the environment and medical applications. Our commitment is to measure to improve, helping those who manufacture products or offer services to do so in the best possible way, to save time and money and respect the environment. The operating method is to “realize turnkey solutions” with advanced technical and innovative know-how, integrating technologies acquired through cooperation with universities and research centres, developed internally and applied to the manufacturing and communication processes of industries and service companies.
Our approach resembles that of a tailor’s, where every customer has his measurements, his needs and aims that we help him to reach. We are organized by business areas (energy and environment, technologies for living, medical, mobility) each of which represents the node of a network of expertise and research formed by customers, collaborators and suppliers. At the same time the research and innovation team develops projects, technologies and transversal expertise in order to remain in the vanguard of innovation, take on new challenges every day and remain competitive.
K.C.: Your company has always prioritized the new frontiers of sustainability and you have received many awards for this. What does sustainability mean to Loccioni?
M.P.P.: What sustainability means to Loccioni is to rediscover the right equilibrium between man, nature and technology. We firmly believe that technology, which is our business, can play an important role in bringing nature back to the centre of people’s lives.We believe technology can and must continue to improve the quality of life of Man and at the same time reduce its negative impact on the environment. Sustainability cannot be synonymous with sacrifice (to carry a burden); it must represent a way to put things back in order, avoid waste, regenerate our relationship with nature.
K.C.: At the last Furniture Salon in Milan you presented the LEAF METER. What is this, and how was it invented?
M.P.P.: The Leaf Meter is a sustainability meter developed by Loccioni in order to visualize, in real time, data on the energy performance and environmental impact of a building. Connected to the systems that produce renewable energy and the devices used to make the building energy-efficient, it tells about the gifts nature makes to us human beings, and the commitment we make to protect it; this commitment does not mean sacrifice but a greater well-being in harmony with the environment. The Leaf Meter has been created as simulacrum and metaphor of the Leaf Community, Italy’s first ecosustainable community, created by Loccioni in the area surrounding its headquarters, and represents a new relationship between nature, man and technology.
The Leaf Community is an opportunity for confrontation and exchange, a real workshop accessible to visitors, an open design territory where people live apartments with zero CO2 emissions and work in efficient buildings and where energy is produced from renewable sources. Moreover, one of the first examples of Virtual Power Plant is being developed in the Leaf Community.
The smart grid and the development of systems for the accumulation, communication and monitoring of energy data will make it one of the first energetically independent communities that have been created. By means of technology the sun, water, the earth and air once again get to play a fundamental role in people’s lives, and in the same way human beings become aware of their role in relation to the nature and their impact on the environment.
K.C.: With what other professional figures and companies do you collaborate in this kind of projects?
M.P.P.: We define ourselves as an Open Company, a company that is open to cooperation, and projects as the Leaf Community are precious opportunities to create excellent research and development networks that give groups new knowledge and make it possible to form new relations. With the Leaf Community project, which centres on the subject of energy, we have had the opportunity to cooperate with architects and designers, university professors and school kids.
The network comprises the whole chain of production, management and consumption of energy: from major producers and distributors as Enel to companies that develop management systems as Siemes, to those who produce appliances and technology for the home, or solutions for sustainable mobility. The Leaf House, our industrial buildings, innovative solutions for the production of renewable energy, are all real products and at the same time open-air workshops that are open to everyone.
K.C.: Leaf Meter, Leaf House and Leaf Community. In what does the mission of the “leaf” consist?
M.P.P.: The leaf lives on the energy of nature through a complex “technology” and restores that energy without leaving dregs.
To live as a “leaf” means to review our activities in such a way as to approach this natural model as closely as possible. Leaf is also the acronym of Life Energy And Future; the approach of the Leaf Community project is to tackle every aspect of everyday life, analysing it in terms of energy and its impact on the environment.
To live, work, produce and move: every action and every choice has a consequence – negative or positive – on the future. To measure the effect of these actions and choices by means of technology increases our awareness and helps us orient ourselves. The Leaf Meter tells us, every day, how nature, with the energy of the sun, rain and the earth is providing us with energy and how we leave a mark – positive or negative – with our activities. To measure means to transform the data into values for which we may each act as testimonial.
Enrico Loccioni, Chairman of the Loccioni Group, was born in a family of farmers in the Marche Region, where he grew up and still lives with his family. In 1968 he opened his first business as an electrician, but quickly distinguished for his attention to the soft components of enterprise: people, relationships and innovation. Today he is President of a worldwide leading group in the development of automatic measurement and control systems, aimed at improving the quality, efficiency and sustainability of products, processes and buildings. The Group led by him has for six years in a row won the Best Workplaces Italy prize due to the outstanding work milieu, the European Business Award and the National Prize for the Innovation In 2008 he has built Italy’s first completely eco-sustainable integrated community, the Leaf Community, thus launching the “Leaf House” project.
Maria Paola Palermi is communication manager of Loccioni.
