Following the EIC GHG Co-creation event with Trelleborg, we had the opportunity to meet with Luca Giovannini, Business Innovation Senior Manager at the company. We discussed Trelleborg’s efforts to reduce emissions, the motivation for joining the EIC’s GHG initiative, and much more, so keep reading to see what he had to say.
Can you briefly describe your role at Trelleborg and explain your motivations for joining the EIC GHG initiative?
I’m the Business Innovation Senior Manager of one of the three business areas of TrelleborgGroup. The leadership and organisation part of the EIC GHG Co-creation initiative was promoted at group level but managed directly by Trelleborg Wheel Systems – one of our divisions. I had previously participated in an EIC initiative (Corporate Days), so I was glad to take the lead on this GHG one. Nowadays, sustainability and innovation are more important with each passing day, and those two factors are also part of Trelleborg’s strategic pillars for the upcoming years.
The EIC GHG Programme is all about reducing GHG emissions and moving towards a carbon-neutral future. What is your company doing in this regard?
Since last year, Trelleborg has launched a new climate target named 50 by 25. This means making sure our emissions are reduced by 50% by 2025 and achieving complete climate neutrality by the end of 2035. Our first target was 20 by 20 – which was already achieved –, and now we’ve decided to raise the bar with these new targets.
Unlike other flagship Business Acceleration Services programmes, this initiative is focused on co-creation as opposed to single rounds of pitching. What does co-creation mean for your company/yourself and what are the benefits compared to a “normal” pitching session?
Historically, Trelleborg is an engineering company that is used to working with projects and not only with products or solutions. Working with start-ups and SMEs is a great learning opportunity for our company. Considering how specific our line of business is, we need to have a support system in place that can understand our needs and adapt the solutions to what we’re looking for. That’s why these types of co-creation initiatives are a good way to find the best partners for us and positively capitalise from them.
What mindset and skills do you look for in companies (start-ups and scale-ups) for co-creation activities?
Based on my current experience dealing with start-ups outside the Trelleborg Group, I consider fundamental having the ability to execute functional plans. You can have great ideas, but if you’re incapable of properly implementing them you might be setting yourself up for failure. Secondly, we look for companies that have the right entrepreneurial spirit, are hands-on, can lead properly, and create added value to their company. Thirdly, having the ability to think outside the box and work with international corporates, instead of just keeping it local.
What are the benefits/advantages of working with the EIC and its portfolio of SMEs?
The EIC is an important institution that offers us a broad and qualified portfolio of companies to partner with. They not only give us access to the most promising SMEs (whether small or not) but also the more solid and capable ones too. As a group, Trelleborg is always looking for partners that want a stable and lasting business relationship – we’re not only interested in discovering the most promising innovations but in creating strong partnerships as well.
What are your views on the online event and the quality of the companies pitching?
The online event was well organised and offered the chance to interact positively with the companies. Also, the quality of the companies pitching was high – we had a lot of good ones, plus it was a great way to get valuable impressions of the owners/founders of those companies and see which ones were a good fit for Trelleborg.
To conclude, what would make this EIC GHG Co-creation initiative a success for your company and what are you hoping to get out of it?
We have already started screening the attending companies to see which ones are more interesting for us. Now, the focus is to find solutions that will help us reduce our emissions sustainably and efficiently in our internal projects. Ultimately, it will be applied to our production facilities starting next year.
Trelleborg isn’t looking for something only applicable a few years from now. We have established a target inside our corporation, which means the time to do it and implement things is now. We have a target to achieve by 2025, therefore we need to put innovations in place to do so. That's why the success of this EIC GHG initiative will be measured by the ability to launch projects that can be executed in a reasonable short time.
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.