Major social changes are always accompanied by cultural and linguistic changes — language tries to keep pace with constantly evolving habits and sensibilities. The environment, with its challenges and opportunities, is now centre stage: last November, the Oxford Dictionary awarded "climate emergency" the title of 2019 word of the year, while the Cambridge English Dictionary chose the word "upcycling".

Favini @favini_it

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Reborn: una nuova linea di notebook ecologici che unisce design e sostenibilità
Cartotecnica Favini ha realizzato questi quaderni con le carte da #riusocreativo, #CrushFavini e #RemakeFavini, rilegati elegantemente a filo.

♥ 1 18 dic 2019 · Apri su X →

What is upcycling

This term, officially coined in 2002, has no literal equivalent in Italian and can be rendered with the phrase "using waste materials, destined to be thrown away, to create new objects of greater value than the original material". Recycling restores a material to its original function, whereas upcycling "adds value to it through intelligent design that makes it more interesting on an economic, aesthetic and emotional level", as designer Max McMurdo explained in his manual Upcycling, ovvero l'arte del recupero ricco di idee originali. The aim of upcycling is therefore to reduce waste and improve resource-use efficiency, creating a new product of greater value from refuse or waste materials.

Favini and upcycling: a long-standing story

Adding value to waste materials is precisely what Favini has been doing for a long time — a company operating in the paper and packaging market, known for its innovative approach combined with environmental sensitivity. Favini began practising upcycling in the 1990s, when the term did not even exist. Over the years the company has used a surprising variety of by-products as valuable raw materials for the production of low ecological impact papers.

Read also: Favini, la cartiera che risparmia acqua, energia e taglia la CO2

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Pedon e Favini lanciano la carta realizzata con gli scarti delle lenticchie

Creative reuse in the driving seat

Seaweed, by-products of agro-industrial processing — such as almond and hazelnut residues — citrus fruit, coffee and grapes, leather and even textile waste: these are some of the by-products to which Favini has given new life by transforming them into raw materials for the production of high-quality ecological paper. The historic paper mill embarked on its upcycling journey in 1992, when it created Shiro alga carta, a paper born from invasive algae found in the Venice lagoon. Since then, Favini's research has never stopped, and the company has used the most varied materials for its papers, all united by the application of a circular economy and upcycling philosophy in their production.

Favini @favini_it

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Moda ed #economiacircolare
Scopri la storia del visual book di #RefitFavini: dalla creazione di un abito alla carta ecologica Refit prodotta dal riuso creativo di scarti di lavorazioni tessile della lana e del cotone.
Clicca per scoprire di più: favini.com/news/il-fascin…

16 dic 2019 · Apri su X →

Favini's sustainability in numbers

Favini avails itself of LifeGate's sustainability consultancy, which has carried out an analysis and assessment of the company's sustainability performance, contributing to the creation of the Sustainability channel section on Favini's website. The soundness of Favini's path is certified by the reduction in water and energy consumption and the decrease in CO2 emissions. Between 2009 and 2018, Favini's water consumption was reduced by 40 per cent and energy consumption by 15 per cent, while emissions fell by 21 per cent, avoiding the release of almost 5,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere thanks to the self-production of hydroelectric energy.