Our commitment
We aim to build relationships that enrich the lives of others
La Marzocco’s philosophy has always been based on the people that rotate around it, putting them at the centre of its company policies. To formalize this approach, La Marzocco decided to become a benefit corporation, making an effort to consider its impact on people and the environment, choosing a sustainable and transparent path that could lead the company to value the ecosystem and the community which exists around it.
La Marzocco, during the last twenty years, went from being a family-led company to an international company with branches all over the world. This expansion has led the company to have greater awareness of its operating impact. Furthermore, in the last ten years a process has been carried out aiming to improve the company’s policies and its management model, refining and adapting it to meet the needs of all of its stakeholders.
“The ultimate goal is to create a huge impact on people, while leaving a minimal footprint on the environment.”
Guido Bernardinelli
La Marzocco is committed to adopting solutions that can reduce its environmental impact. The Scarperia headquarters and the Accademia del Caffè in Pian di San Bartolo produces about 50% of their energy needs through photovoltaic panels. In 2022, the panels produced 530 MWh of green energy. The energy produced by the panels is also used to recharge electric vehicles, free of charge for all employees. There are more than twenty charging stations.
Through the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the company manages to establish its carbon footprint, meaning the equivalent CO2 emissions deriving from production and procurement operations; the calculation of emissions also includes those deriving from logistics, waste processing, the extraction and transport of raw materials, in addition to the consumption of electricity and the movements of its employees. By establishing its carbon footprint, the company can thus identify the areas on which to intervene to reduce its current emissions, in view of the 2050 goal which provides for a complete elimination of greenhouse gas emissions.
Furthermore, the company is able to offset its CO2 equivalent emissions by purchasing certified carbon credits through an environmental protection project in the Madre de Dios region, an area of high biological diversity in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. Thanks to this initiative, in 2022 the company offset 8,500 tons of CO2 emissions.
Songwa Estates
Bringing people to coffee origins in a meaningful way.
In 2007, Africa’s Great Rift Valley was chosen from La Marzocco, Hemro and Probat, three of the leading companies in the coffee sector, as the meeting point between participants in the coffee supply chain and the origins of the raw material that constitutes it, giving rise to the Songwa Estates project. At the heart of an area featuring a century-long coffee growing tradition, the three partners decided to focus on a plantation able to remind all of its visitors how coffee, despite being the second most traded resource in the world after oil, originates from a plant, which must be cared for and safeguarded.
The project aims to use the Songwa plantation as a resource to increase consumer awareness, showing the day-to-day of coffee growing, an activity that lives and thrives at the hands of people that are far away from those who benefit from the processed and finished products.
Experiencing the plantation changes all this, leading to a deeper knowledge reached by being completely involved: walking between the plants of arabica coffee, feeling the smell of the earth, and meeting the people that cultivate, harvest and process that coffee becomes essential to comprehend that world through and through, to acknowledge the real value of the raw material that undertakes a long journey to be ultimately transformed into a universally recognised and appreciated beverage.
With the intention of helping the inhabitants of the territory and its socio-economic development, the Hands for Songwa initiative was born, thanks to which the three companies committed to donating part of their profits to improve the local infrastructures – constructing wells, buildings and schools – and to improve the living conditions in the Tanzanian community.
Additionally, over the span of more than 15 years, La Marzocco, Probat and Hemro have also offered their employees the opportunity to deep dive in the world of coffee through a 10-day expedition onsite, to understand at 360 degrees what “origin” means, to experience first-hand a mostly unknown reality and to be able to find a new sensitivity on the intrinsic themes of (coffee) sustainability, history, culture and economy.
Allowing more and more people, within and beyond one’s organization, to undertake such a professional and personal journey has proved to be an opportunity to elevate knowledge, make an impact, gain and provide inspiration – all by visiting the plantations and contributing to the surrounding villages.
In 2023, this commitment in the field of corporate social responsibility was further structured through the establishment of the Hands for Songwa Foundation, an NGO based in Dar es Salaam, which, while maintaining the mission of the previous project in its statutes, has the possibility of directly receiving donations and managing them in a transparent and autonomous fashion, and on focusing on long-term projects.
Moreover, La Marzocco has also begun the “ConSenso” project on a plot of the Songwa plantation, carried out by the Accademia del Caffè Espresso and PNAT, with the support of Cisco, to study the effects of climate change on coffee plants, threatening the livelihoods of the over 125 million people who make a living from coffee.
In order to support and make known about the new-born foundation, La Marzocco decided to share dedicated info for collecting donations for the Hands For Songwa Foundation:
Bank account address:
CRDB Bank
P.O. Box 268
DAR ES SALAAM/TANZANIA
BRANCH: AZIKIWE
SWIFT CODE:CORUTZTZ
BRANCH CODE:3314
Account numbers:
1. EURO – 1950757784200
2. TZS – 0150757784200
3. USD – 0250757784200