Renzo Rosso Receives Green Award in Berlin
MILAN — The OTB Group’s sustainable efforts gained founder Renzo Rosso a recognition at the Greentech Festival in Berlin.
The entrepreneur was bestowed with the Green Award — Special Prize during a gala ceremony held Wednesday night in the German capital for his ability to combine business prowess with sustainable and socially responsible actions.
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“I am very honored to receive this prestigious award. Being sustainable is very natural and innate for me, thanks to my origins, personal growth and education,” said Rosso, whose OTB Group is parent to brands including Diesel, Marni, Maison Margiela and Jil Sander, among others.
“For this reason, I wanted sustainability to be in the DNA of my group and my team, in order to define business strategies and take decisions in a different way. We have ambitious targets, such as being carbon neutral for our operations by 2030, reducing the use of water and chemical products in our industrial processes, tracing our materials and launching collections with circularity and reusability at the center,” Rosso said.
The award was handed out by Armando Varricchio, the Italian ambassador to Germany. (Italy was this year’s official partner country to the festival.) The diplomat said the award given to Rosso “testifies to the prominent role big, multinational companies have to play for a truly greener and cleaner future.”
In addition to aiming for carbon neutrality by 2030, the OTB Group is committed to joining the ZDHC Roadmap to Zero to reduce discharge of harmful chemicals, as well as initiatives geared at circularity and traceability.
“Approaches to circularity or upcycling and achievements on product durability and traceability are only a few reasons why this prize is absolutely well deserved,” said Greentech Festival’s cofounder Nico Rosberg, a former Formula 1 World Champion who established the festival in 2018 alongside engineers and entrepreneurs Marco Voigt and Sven Krüger, before Judith Kühn, former conference director and board member of DMEXCO, joined the team as chief executive officer in 2020.
The group’s social responsibility plan is best exemplified by the creation of the OTB Foundation in 2008 focused on supporting disadvantaged people in underdeveloped areas. The foundation has already supported around 300 socially and culturally relevant projects around the world.
As reported, it most recently set up a project to offer jobs to Ukrainian refugees in Italy; teamed with the Fondazione Zegna in helping Ukrainian pregnant women and mothers with children under five who couldn’t flee their country, and linked with Milan-based Bocconi University to combat the C-suite gender gap.
SEE ALSO:
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OTB Unveils Ambitious Plan for 2022-24 Period
Renzo Rosso on Solidarity, Growing OTB to 1.5B Group and IPO Window
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