✦ Active sustainability
A hundred and thirty hectares back in production
Through UP Farm we have taken over the Il Ronco estate and are restoring a hundred and thirty hectares of it across Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany. This is not a property investment or an image exercise: it is farmland going back into cultivation, with the people and the machinery to do it.
Restoring land means putting right things you cannot see from the roadside. The soil first: structure, organic matter, the ability to hold water instead of letting it run off. Then the drainage network, the crops, the timings. It is slow work, and the results are measured in seasons, not quarters.
A hundred and thirty hectares is roughly a hundred and eighty football pitches. That is the scale we are working at.
Where the water took years of work away
Part of that land sits in areas the flood hit hard. There, restoration does not start from zero: it starts from below it. Water carries off the fertile layer, fills the ditches, leaves the ground compacted and the drainage to be rebuilt.
Choosing to work there too was a deliberate decision. This is the land nobody wants to take on, and that is exactly why we went: one hectare recovered where recovery was in doubt is worth more, to the environment and to the people living around it, than ten hectares that were already in order.
Why a group of work services farms land
It is a fair question. The answer is that we did not arrive here by accident: UP Farm is in the group because the agricultural and agrifood supply chain is one of the sectors we have worked in for years, with the seasonal labour and the know-how that trade demands. We knew the field before we bought one.
And there is one thing we do better than most: putting the right people together for difficult work. Restoring a hundred and thirty hectares is, first of all, a question of hands, skills and organisation. Which is our trade exactly.
And then there is the ordinary part
The part everyone does, and that has to be done anyway. We list it without fanfare, because it is the floor, not the goal.
Paperless offices
Contracts, payslips, communications and archives, all digital. For a group handling thousands of employment relationships, the paper saved is not a symbolic detail.
Single-use plastic out
Gone from the offices and the warehouses, where daily habits make more difference than declarations do.
Resources under control
Energy, water and materials measured and managed automatically: what does not get measured does not get reduced.
People who know why
Training and awareness on the green policy, because a procedure nobody understands is a procedure nobody follows.
Sustainable for the people in it, too
The same word applies to people: a sustainable employment relationship is one that holds up over time, not one that pays off for a quarter.
Fairness and respect
We adopt sustainable practices to reduce the ecological footprint of what we do, cutting waste and emissions.
Diversity and inclusion
We promote diversity in all its forms, building a workplace that welcomes and supports people of every background and identity.
Room to grow
We offer equal opportunities for professional development to everyone, supporting personal growth and career progression.
Sustainable means it lasts
A sustainable company is not one that offsets: it is one that leaves things in better condition than it found them. That goes for the land, and in exactly the same way for the people who work with us.
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