The Sodalitas Foundation was established in 1995 on the initiative of Assolombarda and a group of companies and managers, and is today the first organisation to promote Company Sustainability in Italy, contributing towards the evolution of the role of the company as a social, rather than financial, player. The Aim? To create a sustainable future!

With the foundation, we share in the key values and the paths towards growth, and for this, we have renewed our participation in their activities of 2018 as well. Indeed, last year, together with Sodalitas, we pursued two extremely interesting initiatives: The "DEPLOY YOUR TALENTS - Stepping up the STEM agenda for Europe" campaign, and the Cresco Awards.

Having reached the fourth Italian edition, the “DEPLOY YOUR TALENTS – Stepping up the STEM agenda for Europe” campaign has involved 13 businesses and 12 upper school institutes (to a total of 400 students), in a common task for awareness-raising in youngsters on the value of education in technical-scientific matters, and on how a solid STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) foundation can make a difference in finding work and professional development.

In the sphere of this campaign, the Italian branch of Mitsubishi Electric has met with the two classes of the De Amicis Science high school in Milan. During the first meeting, an engineering colleague of the Mitsubishi Electric Climatization Division presented the company and its organisation to the children and talked of her own study path and successful entry into the work place thanks to her choice of STEM subjects. Furthermore, the children of the two classes were hosted at the Mitsubishi Electric establishment for a visit to the offices, the Climatization Training Centre and to the Factory Automation Demo Room, as well as for a meeting with the Mitsubishi Electric Human Resources Directorate in order to make the youngsters aware of their most suitable educational choices combined with the greatest possibility of securing work, in addition to the need also to work on their so called "soft skills".

The Cresco Awards are promoted by the Sodalitas Foundation and ANCI (Italian National Communes Association), in partnership with a number of companies engaged on the sustainability front, to value and reward the innovative initiatives of Italian Councils in establishing effective initiatives for promoting sustainable development in a widespread manner over their territory. In this regard, we have awarded the "Sustainable Cohabitation" prize to the Commune of Turin, for their "Supported Young Cohabitation" project.

Thanks to the receipt of the prize, the Turin Council will be able to make use of a free technical consultancy and a project study for a unit for conditioning, heating or production of hot sanitation water. The consultancy will allow for identification of the most suitably innovative solutions for establishing, at the public utilities buildings, utilities to guarantee quality standards of energy efficiency and comfort, reduced energy consumption and environmental friendliness.

Indeed, when we proposed this prize to the Sodalitas Foundation, it was our intention to reward the Council who had better knowledge on how to promote on its own territory either directly or indirectly, initiatives which were capable of incentivising social relationships, and the promotion of virtuous conduct, through the creation of new types of home. And so it was!