Roveda Marco
Organization: LifeGate Group
Year Founded: 2000
Country: Italy
Website: www.lifegate.it
LifeGate aims to contribute to a new way of doing business that places the environment at the centre. Focus: Communications/Media, Consumer Awareness, Energy, Environment, Trade Geographic Area of Impact: Italy Model: Social Business Annual Budget: US$ 10 million (2008) Percentage Earned Revenue: 100% Recognition: Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Italy, 2007 Background Excessive materialism of the past 30 years has undermined basic human values; profit does not necessarily equal happiness. LifeGate is the first business of its kind in Italy that breaks with the past by proposing a new way to work and live. It offers a unique model for a new economy, where business has a conscience and people are aware of their actions, and how they affect others and the environment. Innovation and Activities LifeGate aims to contribute to a new way of doing business that places the environment at the centre. Based on three interrelated concepts – people, planet and profits – LifeGate operates a number of activities aimed at changing people’s mindsets and society as a whole. Impatto Zero (or zero impact), a LifeGate project to reduce carbon emissions through reforestation, involves over 500 companies and several universities. To date, 20 million square metres of new forests have been created through the project. Other activities include LifeGate Ecopartners, a consulting enterprise that offers market analysis, brand positioning and eco-marketing strategy, while LifeGate Engineering offers a specialized consulting service in renewable energy systems for homes, private enterprises, and public services. LifeGate Renewable Energy is the first Italian distributor of 100% clean energy to businesses and the public. LifeGate Portal, a website with over 10,000 articles on health, environment, organic food, FairTrade, psychology and other topics, promotes social and environmental awareness. The portal receives 400,000 visitors per month. LifeGate Radio, with over 400,000 listeners per week, offers high-quality music complemented by ethical messages or advice. LifeGate Ecojeans produces jeans using organic cotton and has an ethical approach to the market. LifeGate Planet Onlus aims to be a point of reference for major NGOs. As part of this new activity, Marco Roveda is writing a free e-book translated in five languages with Ervin Laszlo and many famous leaders and Nobel Prize winners, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Wangari Maathai, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Shirin Ebadi, Deepak Chopra, Fritjof Capra, Vandana Shiva and others. The Entrepreneur Born in Milan in 1951, Marco Roveda is an entrepreneur, a philosopher and a visionary. To pursue his love of architecture he founded a construction company at the age of 20; by 22 he owned two companies and managed 40 employees. Roveda realized that material wealth would never bring him happiness, so he sold one of the businesses and started a biodynamic farm (Fattoria Scaldasole), which became nationally renowned for its organic yogurt, bio-juices and other products. He sold the other business to Plasmon, the Italian giant of baby food, and began contemplating a new concept of quality life rather then a quality product, hoping to inspire others to rediscover non-materialistic values while producing goods and services that were compatible with those values. LifeGate and LifeGate Planet Onlus are the manifestation of these efforts.
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