Camilla Lunelli of Ferrari Trento: Five Strategies Our Company Is Using To Tackle Climate Change & Become More Sustainable
Teach children to open themselves more to those who are different from them and especially to those who are less fortunate. In my family, we open our home to people who come from other parts of the world or who are not integrated in the fabric of society. For example, we recently hosted a mother and daughter from Ukraine. We’ve had guests in our home who were victims of domestic violence. I believe there is value in showing my children to be supportive to victims of violence and to those who migrate to seek a better life.
As part of our series about how companies are becoming more sustainable, we had the pleasure of interviewing Camilla Lunelli, Co-owner and Head of Communications for Ferrari Trento winery in Trentino, Italy.
Camilla Lunelli grew up in the Ferrari Trento winery in the foothills of the Italian Alps. She spent her early career in consulting and doing humanitarian work in Niger and Uganda. Today she is an owner in the family business, with her cousins, and she oversees communications and sustainability of Gruppo Lunelli. In the name of a strategy of diversification in beverage excellence, the Lunelli family has placed Ferrari side by side with a grappa, Segnana; a mineral water, Surgiva; and still wines from Tenute Lunelli. The latter include Tuscan wines from Podernovo, Umbrian wines from Castelbuono, Trento wines from Margon and lastly a famous brand of Prosecco Superiore di Valdobbiadene DOCG, Bisol1542. Cedral Tassoni, well known for its iconic cedrata, the Michelin-star restaurant, Locanda Margon, located at the gates of Trento, completes this overview.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
As a child I often went to the vineyard and to the cellar with my dad, Mauro. He was the oenologist for our family winery in those years.
My own career began in quite a different setting, however. I attended Bocconi University in Milan and gained work experience in Paris at Banque Paribas and subsequently in New York at UNICEF. After graduating with honors, I went to work in strategy consulting with Deloitte Consulting. Two years later, I was hired by the United Nations Development Program and posted to Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries, to supervise a socioeconomic rehabilitation program for ex-rebels. I then moved to Uganda to work with a non-governmental organization on emergency aid projects for the victims of the war in the north of the country. I returned to Italy in 2004 to join the family business. I am very passionate about wine, strongly rooted in my homeland of Trentino and happy to work with my family and a talented team.
What is the mission of your company? What problems are you aiming to solve?
Ferrari Trento was founded in 1902 by Giulio Ferrari, who brought the Chardonnay wine grape to Italy and pioneered traditional method sparkling wine production in our mountainous region of Trentino, in the Italian Alps. In 1952, Giulio Ferrari sold the winery to my grandfather, Bruno Lunelli. Today, together with my cousins, Matteo and Marcello, and my brother, Alessandro, I represent the third generation of the Lunelli family at the helm of Ferrari Trento. We are proud to carry forward the dream of promoting Ferrari throughout the world as a symbol of the Italian Art of Living. While we are stewarding a global brand, we are at the same time proud to run a business that is committed to sustaining our local environment and its biodiversity and to supporting our local economy and community through promotion, employment and knowledge-sharing.
The problems we face are typical of those of agricultural businesses. As growers, we are among the first to suffer the effects of climate change. We must therefore be at the forefront of countering these effects through research, investment and adherence to practices that will sustain our land and community.
Can you tell our readers about the initiatives that you or your company are taking to address climate change or sustainability? Can you give an example for each?
This year, we celebrate the 120th anniversary of our founding. We have marked this milestone by pursuing and achieving carbon neutrality at the corporate level. This effort follows our having had all of our estate vineyards certified organic. Our vineyards are also “Biodiversity Friend”-certified.
We spend a lot of time and resources in training and support for the viticulturists who supply grapes for our sparkling Trentodoc wines. We’re talking about more than 600 families. At the beginning, we thought it would be a challenge to have them change their way of cultivating and convert either to organic or to our protocol certified by CSQA, which is very close to organic. But it’s something they have all done faster and more easily than we expected. Some of them did it for eco-friendly reasons, others for health reasons. The promotion of biodiversity is a fundamental principle for us. Simply improving the natural fertility of the soil supports a better environment for the families who live and work in the vineyards.
How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?
In spite of — or indeed because of — the challenges of climate change, this is actually an exciting time to be working sustainably in the sparkling wine sector. By bringing our community of suppliers together under a common mission to farm sustainably, to protect the land we all share for generations to come, and to support our local economy, we have been able to grow our business in a healthy and sustainable way. On the sales side, we have seen demand for environmentally and socially responsible winemaking, especially among young people.
The youth-led climate strikes of September 2019 showed an impressive degree of activism and initiative by young people on behalf of climate change. This was great, and there is still plenty that needs to be done. In your opinion what are 5 things parents should do to inspire the next generation to become engaged in sustainability and the environmental movement? Please give a story or an example for each.
- Teach children that the issues addressed by the environmental movement are not only about other people, but also about them. For example, I took my children to “Fridays for Future” demonstrations in Trento. My youngest child was six years old at the time. We are part of the problem, so we must teach our children how to be part of the solution. We instill these values at home, for example by recycling, keeping energy use to a minimum, and consuming far less meat.
- Teach children to love nature.
- Teach children where their food comes from and how consumption choices have a direct impact on the environment.
- Set a good example in managing natural resources, such as water. In our family business, we source most of the water we need for winemaking from a local well and we make efforts to use this resource responsibly. Not all communities have this luxury. It is important for us to show children the value of water, especially where it is scarce, and how to use it responsibly.
- Teach children to open themselves more to those who are different from them and especially to those who are less fortunate. In my family, we open our home to people who come from other parts of the world or who are not integrated in the fabric of society. For example, we recently hosted a mother and daughter from Ukraine. We’ve had guests in our home who were victims of domestic violence. I believe there is value in showing my children to be supportive to victims of violence and to those who migrate to seek a better life.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- I have a strong social and environmental mission, personally. This is the motivation that pushed me to go to live in Africa and dedicate myself to humanitarian work earlier in my career. One regret I have is that I didn’t start sooner with sustainability at Ferrari Trento after I joined the family company. We have always been ethically focused, but we only codified our mission recently. This acceleration corresponds to the cultural time in which we live, when environmental sustainability is popular. Perhaps if someone had told me to have the courage to start to formalize our own vision sooner, I would have led the charge earlier.
- I never noticed a gender gap in our society until I had children. If someone had told me that socially, it’s almost taken for granted that mothers will take on the bulk of childcare, I would have understood better how our culture still makes work difficult for mothers. I believe we have a responsibility to move faster in reducing the gender gap, mainly for working mothers.
- My formal education was very much focused on technical content and very low on soft skills and emotional intelligence. There was very little group work. There was not even much instruction in public speaking or organizational management. I wish the system had offered me more holistic training. The system does seem to be changing slightly nowadays.
- We should have started earlier with collectively promoting our local appellation, Trentodoc, instead of from 2007, when the promotion of the collective brand began. I wish someone had told me in 1993, when Trentodoc was established as the first appellation in Italy just dedicated to traditional method sparkling wine, that we had terrific potential and would be stronger as a group.
- I wish the approach of my formal education had trained me to focus more on team performance than on individual results. I have shifted my management style to an environment more favorable to group success. The Covid-19 pandemic affirmed the importance of motivating a group.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My answer is not particularly original, but I am grateful to my parents. My father, Mauro, gave me a great example of having passion for what I do and transmitted to me a great love for the world of wine. When it comes to my humanitarian motivations, my mother set a great example for me. She is a source of consistent security and compassion. Plus, they gave me the freedom to choose my own path, never pressuring me to join the family business. My parents’ faith in me throughout my life has helped me tremendously.
You are a person of great influence and doing some great things for the world! If you could inspire a movement that would bring the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
The issue that most moves me is the global disparity of opportunity, education, health and freedom of choice. Helping the most disadvantaged countries is the movement I would most like to advance.
I would like to inspire the microfinancing of small enterprises in developing countries where there is a need for dignified and sustainable economic development and employment.
From my position, the best I can do is to create and maintain a company that provides dignified work for people who seek it. Our region of Trentino was historically very poor and many people had to emigrate to find better lives. People who emigrate here today are not asking for charity. They just want work and dignity. Tourism and wineries have made a difference. This means that sparkling wine has had an impact. There is deep value in creating jobs. Being able to provide jobs is one of the best things about running a company. Creating sustainable local employment is an aspect of sustainability that’s important to me.
Do you have a favorite life lesson quote? Can you tell us how that was relevant to you in your own life?
Aristotle said that “excellence is not an act; it’s a habit.” I am motivated by the ideal of working every day toward a virtuous goal, rather than arriving at a destination.
I also believe in the idea that “you get what you give.” This is something that I try to apply to both my professional and my personal life.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
Through the ferraritrento.com website or on Instagram, you can find me at @CamillaLunelli and Ferrari Trento @FerrariTrento
Thank you for these great insights, and for the time you spent on this. We wish you continued success.
Camilla Lunelli of Ferrari Trento: Five Strategies Our Company Is Using To Tackle Climate Change &… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.