Italy's three areas of excellence are food, fashion and design. That is why Green Pea could not be without a floor dedicated to furniture and home furnishings. A floor aimed at both the individual consumer — with kitchens, bedrooms and furniture — and the business sector. So is it a 360-degree offer? "Let's not exaggerate," says Pierangelo De Poli, architect and head of Green Pea's Home, living & design sector, "even if we get as close as possible."

So what can you find on the Home floor at Green Pea?
You'll find furniture, lighting — including lighting design — doors, windows, fabrics, curtains, ceramics and furnishings. The term "green" in the home sector is democratic. We cannot think that green products are reserved only for certain categories of people. Our motto is "top & pop", because here — as on the other floors — you can find products at different price points that all share the same common denominator: they are all sustainable.

What does that mean?
First, a premise: outside every stand, there are signs listing the criteria we used to select the companies present here. In general, sustainable for us means long-lasting products. We like to point out that the word "sustainable" derives from the English sustain, like the third pedal on a piano — the one that extends the note — so it means "long-lasting". We are not green fundamentalists, but we want to help people understand that if we don't change our consumption habits, in fifty years' time it won't be the Earth that disappears, but humankind on Earth. So, to prevent the human race from being buried under its own waste, we need to change the way consumers think — doing so in a correct and ethical way. Not as extremists, but consciously: that is when a truly extraordinary shift will happen. When you walked onto this floor, you saw a chair: it costs 45 euros and is made of 60 per cent recycled plastic and 40 per cent entirely recyclable material. But in the stand next to it you can find a chair that is also a design piece and costs 1,500 euros. We have a sustainable kitchen starting at 3,500 euros and, at the other extreme, one at 50,000. Nothing here is "dear": we prefer the word "expensive". Even the 3,500-euro one is expensive, in the sense that it has its "own" cost — the right one. There are reasons behind such different price points.

What does making kitchens sustainably actually mean?
There are companies that have been making sustainable kitchens since the 1980s, using glass, crystal and aluminium — all entirely recyclable materials. Some focus on sustainable design, where cabinet doors become just two millimetres thick — a feat, because it is an ultra-lightweight door that uses far less material. Some work with particular types of wood, such as cedar; others use FSC-certified timber, and some launched a green line specifically for this occasion. Then there is Green Pea Casa: these are products conceived and designed by us, using carefully selected materials. We make kitchens, sofas, sleeping areas and furniture. Let me give a few examples: we have created a kitchen with a worktop made from quartz and rice-husk waste, or from construction aggregate. Before Green Pea, these products were just an idea; now, thanks to our experience, they take shape and become real. Kitchens like the one I just described start at 8,000–10,000–12,000 euros and upwards. Then there is Green Pea "Casa in kit" — these are flat-pack kitchens: we approached the largest producer of recycled chipboard and selected the highest-quality grade. We then produced a kitchen that can be assembled and disassembled, where even the cabinet doors are made from recycled panels. In short, there are many different ways of making sustainable kitchens.

You mentioned a varied offer at the beginning. What else is there beyond kitchens?
Parquet, timbers, ceramics: there is the Materioteca, where you come and touch the surfaces you might choose firsthand. And then doors, windows, curtains — all selected from sustainable supply chains. There are refurbished appliances, custom lamps made from reclaimed materials, bedrooms with carefully selected fabrics, design chairs in recycled cardboard. Then there are accessories such as water bottles — did you know that water bottles were invented in Turin? — pots and pans in recycled aluminium, kitchen utensils from sustainable supply chains, and handmade candles. Finally, as I always say, companies are never defined by their walls, but by their people. That is why professionals, designers and, of course, clients are at the heart of this sector. We have set up a space in the centre of the floor dedicated to discussion, planning and bespoke design. People must be at the centre — that is the message we want to convey.

What was your reaction when Oscar Farinetti asked you to be part of this project?
It was 8 May 2018 and I remember everything about that day. I had no idea what I was getting into. I come from a family of carpenters and furniture retailers: my great-grandfather and grandfather were carpenters in the province of Cuneo, then my parents moved to Turin because they had spotted the opportunity to sell furniture. I carried on that family tradition. When Farinetti put the idea to me, I was struck by it: in a way, I had already followed a similar path myself, because over time I had learned to select certain companies with a particular focus on environmental issues — but I had never thought of bringing them all together in one place. When he told me, I thought "there's the hot water". But it was far from easy: it took someone like him to turn this dream into reality. He had a vision ten years before it became a trend: that is what genius is. And what was presented to me as an idea in 2018 had, three years later, become reality, exactly as it had been described to me. As for the rest, we got to know each other, we hit it off, and together this adventure began.