Weaving Sustainability into a 440-year-old Family Business
Andrea Piana, CEO of Piana Technology, is transforming a 440-year-old family textile business into a cutting-edge sustainable innovation company. Starting from a traditional Italian textile background, Piana has pivoted the family enterprise toward circular design and zero-waste technologies that aim to benefit both human health and planet health.
The company's recent innovations include a groundbreaking mattress that reduces weight by 30%, cuts CO2 emissions by 50%, and decreases energy consumption by approximately 50%. By November 2024, four of their Georgia manufacturing facilities are now 100% solar-powered, demonstrating a comprehensive commitment to sustainable industrial practices.
Topics Discussed:
The history of the Piana Family business
Circular design principles applied to the textile industry
Their innovative mattress recycling program
How climate change impacts changed their business
The company's sustainability goals
The future of innovation in the mattress industry
Links:
Episode Transcript:
Andrea Piana (00:00):
At 51 years old, I can just create the conditions hopefully for somebody else to be the leverage that is needed for whatever is the best interest or the real benefit for humanity in the future.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (00:16):
Hello everybody, and welcome to We Are Not Doomed. We bring you interviews with industry leaders, authors, journalists, and real people who are making an impact on climate change. Every day We Are Not Doomed is produced by Puddle Creative. We're a full service podcast production agency. And I'm Jonah Geil-Neufeld, the executive producer. Today our guest is Andrea Piana, the CEO of Piana Technology. Piana Technology was born out of a 400 and 40-year-old family owned Italian textile company. It's evolved to focus on a wide array of sustainable and circular technologies, and it's now focused on revolutionizing multiple industries, including automotive and bedding. In 1995, the Piana family opened its first American factory in Cartersville, Georgia. They now have a couple factories in Georgia as well as Arizona. And Andrea came on the podcast to talk about circular design, how they're moving to zero waste and zero carbon emissions, and specifically about the bedding mattress that they just created that uses circular design and is fully recyclable. We talk about how he started in his family business, what the company does, why they care about climate change, and how climate change has already affected their lives and their business. I hope you enjoyed this interview. Give the podcast a follow on Apple, Spotify, or whatever app you use to listen to podcasts. Here's our interview, Andrea Piana. Welcome to We Are Not Doomed, the Podcast. Thanks so much for being here.
Andrea Piana (01:56):
Thank you very much for having me. Pleasure and an honor,
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (02:00):
First I just wanted to kind of dive into your background a little bit. I know this is a family business, so you probably grew up around it. How did you get involved in the family business? And then talk to me a little bit about what you guys do.
Andrea Piana (02:14):
Well, as you stated correctly, I think at birth I was forced to enter in the family business. We come from a tiny city in Italy. The name is from the northwest of Italy, between middle and touring from the mountains.
(02:33):
So my family, as you stated correctly, has been in business since 1582. That does not mean that we have been successful since 1582. Mostly there are period of great success, period of extreme difficulties. So I think it's more functions of resiliency, of creativity, the importance of legacy for sure. And so in this context, of course, my father started to send me to experience work in the summer starting from when I was nine years old. So I was exposed to what is a manufacturing environment, a workflow, a relationship with individuals who are committed to the success of an organization since early age and then more formally around the age of 21, I was actually studying economics in Italy and we opened, my family decided to open the first manufacturing facility in United States because the US government established a quarter, so limitations on the amount of material that we could export into United States. So it was a strategical decision to open the first manufacturing facility. They asked me if I was interested in moving to United States, and of course within five seconds I say yes. And within few months I just grabbed my luggage. My dog and I landed in Atlanta, Georgia.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (04:08):
And so talk to me a little bit about what Piana Technology does.
Andrea Piana (04:12):
Sure. Piana Technology has a specific purpose statement to be the powerhouse of innovative, sustainable technologies. Currently, Piana Technologies is divided in six manufacturing facilities, which five of them, they're here in Georgia and one is in Arizona. So we do from chemical applications to installations material to bedding, to automotive, to foam replacement. We just launched actually our first bedding company. We're going to literally 30 days ago, and we started to sell beds. Piana Technology stands for specific principles. We do have mindset of innovations and sustainability, specifically circular design. So in anything that we do from products to process, we do focus about these two critical components.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (05:17):
Do you still have facilities in Italy or is it all in the United States now?
Andrea Piana (05:22):
So we do not have facilities in Italy right now. We have only facilities here in the United States. There are some other facility for family members, but they're completely separate entities.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (05:37):
And so you mentioned circular design. So talk to me about circular design. What does that mean? How do you implement it with piana?
Andrea Piana (05:45):
Well, other than the basic, which is to reduce, reuse and truly recycle everything that we do, it's a function also of designing a specific product based on reductions of raw material. It is based on identify sources of raw material, which are based on the recycled component or if you use natural fiber, if you cotton, they have to come from an organic field. And then we focus on quality because the quality is very important. You can produce, let's say, lower quality standard material, then they're not going to last too long. And at that specific point, we're back to an excessive amount of consumption that there is really not the necessity, the needs for that.
(06:37):
We are also focused on reducing just it to be the complexity of the products and also the process. We have determined historically that more we increase the complexity and higher going to become the difficulties of creating this specific product and more complex the process, more energy consumptions more CO2 emissions. And so the objective has been can we add the functionality into less quantity of resources, providing great comfort, providing great benefit to humanity, and the humanity is defined as the health of the individuals and the health of the planet. So that's in general, in general terms, how we approach everything. So there is the innovation mindset, the circular design approach. Those really are the pillars of our facility. But ultimately it's always based on is there a benefit for humanities there, a benefit for the planet. So these are the critical component on everything that we do.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (07:46):
Yeah, so maybe take an example. So I know you said you just 30 days ago launched a sleep mattress, you're going to make mattresses. So how does this new mattress fit into that circular design?
Andrea Piana (08:01):
Yeah, that's a very important question actually. So 50,000 mattresses that throw in the landfill every single day. Every day. So that's an astronomical amount of mattress. If you stack them on the top of each other, then you're going to reach the height of the Mount Everest.
(08:19):
So you can start to visualize and put in the proper context a problem. So we have decided to develop our first mattresses, creating an extremely high quality mattresses with specific type of functionality, but with the base of high level of circular design. So we have reduced the weight of the mattresses by 30 percentage. We have reduced the amount of CO2 emissions by 50 percentage, and we have reduced the amount of energy required to create these mattresses by approximately 50 percentage. And now we are opening also our own recycling facilities. So we are committed to our promise that is to recycle every mattresses that we introduce in the world. And then by November 1st four of our manufacturing facilities here in Georgia, they're going to be a hundred percent solar. So the process and product, as we were stating before, it's a full commitment toward what we stand for.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (09:31):
So for the recycling facility, does that mean the mattresses will be kind of broken down and turned into new mattresses or turned into other products?
Andrea Piana (09:42):
That's another very good question. So it depends by the complexity of the mattresses as well. So in our specific case, if we have a mattresses that we are producing, it's returned to us, then we already know that in the recycling process we can convert this material fundamentally into fiber that can then be sanitized. And so once the material is sanitized, it is our intention to convert this sanitized material into a, let's call it a small, small mattresses that we're going to donate. We can donate to people who they have not been very fortunate. And so either there's sleep in the street so people are in difficult economical situations or disaster reliefs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that's our intention. Then the other mattresses we're going to recycle that have not been produced by us and what we have done, we have identified potential buyers that we recycle this material for different type of purposes.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (10:49):
Wow. Yeah. And so in with these, I know you talked about your vision and mission at the company that informs all of these things that you do. How did this start? When did you decide, oh, we're going to go full solar with our facilities in Georgia and things like that? What were the changes that brought about the evolution of the business?
Andrea Piana (11:14):
Well, I mean, first as an organizations, we believe that we need to lead with courage. We need to lead with creativity. We need to lead with imaginations, and at least we do believe that we have to implement this unshakable commitment toward humanity. And so based on that sensations, especially when I was younger, during a shift that materialize at the end of 1999, China enter into the WTO and with our traditional business, 95 percentage of that disappears within six months when China entered the WT O. And so it was a moment of crisis. Of course, when customers, they communicate to you that in six months your business is going from 100 to five, then it's a little bit more confusing and you get a bit scared. However, I remember I was actually returning from Italy. I was visiting my hometown and I start to put in perspective that the amount of snow in my city where growing up was always present for three to four months a year, it was melting. And what it would've been, these beautiful mountains within 20 minutes of reach you could actually ski was not any longer.
(12:44):
And so we started to focus more about it is clear that the planet is changing well about if we focus about what is absolutely relevant, which is supporting humanity, supporting environment, and leverage innovations, which is our core of everything that we do. So we put them together and we determine basic questions for us, how we approach business, which is the idea based on circular design, is it innovative, meaning it's either transformative or disruptive? Is it unique and is going to create a benefit? And since then, we have surrounded ourself with very brilliant researchers. We have collaborators and open platform throughout the world with institutions that are focusing about transformative and or disruptive ideas. And we have embraced this new path. And so we were fortunate and determined and Brazilians and a bit of a misfit, which is okay.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (13:52):
Yeah. So you mentioned the snow in your hometown that you saw kind of receding. So one of my questions usually is how has climate change affected your life already? And that was probably an impetus for a lot of this stuff. How do you see, are there things you're thinking about for your facilities in Georgia and Arizona, for instance, where you're thinking about five and 10 years from now? Are you making changes or thinking about the future in terms of just the climate being different than it is today? And how are you adding resiliency around that?
Andrea Piana (14:33):
So we need to be a bit science-based in some aspects. Science is very simple, meaning a CO2 is released in the atmosphere and it works like how you call it a cover, a blanket.
(14:52):
So the natural consciousness of that is simply that the planet is going to get hotter. And so based on these premises and based on the fact that is at least I personally believe we are pretty much in an ecological bankruptcy, everything that we are focusing in the past 10 to 20 years, they're going to be based on zero net emissions, which I think we are moving definitely in the right directions. We are making investment that our investment made for our own principle, our own intrinsic values that now made to trigger an interest of a consumer, the buyers. Because I can tell you that historically I've never seen anybody being skew one side towards sustainability. Ultimately it's about the quality of the product.
(15:46):
And so all our facilities, how we embrace our life at a personal level, they're going to be objectified toward the capability to create values for humans, for the health of the humans and for the health of the planet. We are experiencing a four to five x increase of natural disasters from the eighties. I am unfortunately, or it's a part of my life, I'm asthmatic. And so the percentage of asthmatic people or with respiratory disease has been skyrocketed in the past 20 years. And of course air pollutions pollen increases even more when there is a hot temperature and you higher level of humidity. And so some of we're also shifting as an organization toward more the health industries. So I'm actually going to be in Italy next week. We are trying to work on a textile product that can work as well as a biomarkers. So with the capability to detect degenerative diseases, mostly respiratory problem.
(16:55):
And so mostly the capability to create an affordable type of diagnostics tool. So democratization based on innovations and based on sustainable or secure design technologies. So we are maintaining the value of innovations. We're moving stronger and stronger and more committed than ever on net zero emissions. And so that's how we see the value shifting. And then ultimately, it's going to be the fruit of generations. They're going to be the leader of the world at 51 years old. I can just create the conditions hopefully for somebody else to be the leverage that is needed for whatever is the best interest or the real benefit for humanity in the future. So I can only dream and I can only execute and the team around me exceptional.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (17:50):
So going off that actually, so what do you see in the future? What makes you feel hopeful for the future in general, but also maybe what makes you feel hopeful for the future for your company?
Andrea Piana (18:03):
We have to be hopeful, no, for the future. I think he was Viktor Frankl quote that if I recall it correctly, and maybe English is not memorable, was that between any stimulus and any response in that gap is your absolute power, is your absolute power to make the decision that you think is in your best interest and the best interest of others. So I do believe in the power of humanity kind of a shift in the level of consciousness. So I believe that humans, historically, yes, we did create a tremendous amount of harms, but we also have creating a very remarkable evolutions. We are shifting from the power reason is going to be in the hands of artificial intelligence in the future, but the power of philosophical interpretations, the power of faith, the power of love is definitely going to be in the hands of humanity.
(19:09):
And so that's what makes me hopeful. And there are great individuals out there. I mean, you are a leader itself and committed to share people who they have at their heart, the interest of the planet, the interest of the people. So that's what makes me hopeful. Related to our product, we have a dual mindset. One is to have a very basic engineering or scientific approach, like there is a problem and we need to find the solutions. The other one is just a little bit more intuitive. How do we going to be disruptive and remaining aligned with all the principles I've defined before? So if we mix these two approach, so front end and backend, then we believe we have placed ourself in the trajectory to be valuable for others because as long as we're valuable, we are going to remain in business. Then if we're not valuable, the buyers, the world is going to judge us in a different way, which is perfectly fine. That's just the history of the world.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (20:22):
Oh, that's nice. I love what you said about the power of reasoning being in the hands of ai, but that love and hope and faith will be in the hands of humanity. And I do also believe that there's a lot that can be done when humans all look towards their higher selves and lead with that vision.
Andrea Piana (20:46):
Sorry, this conversation, I don't know exactly where we're going in this conversation, but we have done an exceptional work in enormous caring people. We always highlight the challenges, the difficulties, the threat, and we live in this always fight or flight conditions in our mind. So our amygdala is always really activated, which is not helpful. We missed the real opportunity, which is this cohesive social interactions between humanity. And that's partially also what you just stated. I mean putting together then the level of consciousness increases drastically. So we can accomplish technically anything that we want.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (21:36):
So what did your family's company originally start out as 440 years ago as a textile? What were they making?
Andrea Piana (21:49):
I mean, you start from basic clothes to dire or wool. And so really you're talking about the very basic necessity. And being from the north of Italy was actually extremely cold. Majority of the company, they move in these specific locations because of the quality of the water. So when you're a dire, the quality of the water is very important. If it's a hard water, then it's significantly more complex to be able to accomplish specific results that it's a great area actually where the water is soft. So yeah, but I mean it was really basic from close to weaving to at the beginning. It's always, this is a business, this is a necessity. Families, they're very large, they're all together, and then eventually they diversify. They separate and each one evolves and specialize into different type of activities.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (22:55):
Yeah, wow. It's just crazy to think of that long ago. Yeah. Great. And then for your new mattress, you said that you just started this. Are you selling these mattresses to the general public or is it just to hotels? Right now
Andrea Piana (23:17):
We are selling to retailers which just started and to hospitality. Yeah, we don't have a DTC or I prefer to call it DTP because direct to people, I dunno about consumer. I'm bit allergic to this world. We are not there yet.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (23:35):
So if I wanted to get one of these mattresses, what would I have to do?
Andrea Piana (23:40):
Yeah, you send me an email and we make it happen. I mean, the objective is really, we are so different from everybody else. As an example, in one of the top layer of the mattresses, we had the molecules. In this specific case, we are putting molecules that will allow an individual to be more relaxed. So it's really about adding a tremendous amount of functionality. So we created this environment, which is actually 10 times more air permeable than any other environment. So it's cooler, it's fresher, it's antimicrobial. We activate an air transmitter activity through sense. It's really a mattresses that does not exist anywhere. Nobody has ever created this. So the objective is really to start fairly small to maintain the absolute level of quality and to maintain the level of integrity required to remain truthful to everything that we promised.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (24:51):
Yeah, that's so cool. So where can listeners find you and your work if they want to check you out on the internet?
Andrea Piana (24:59):
Well, I mean, they can go to the site Piana Sleep or Piana Technology. I think that would be the easiest approach.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (25:07):
Perfect. Anything else that you want to chat about that I missed maybe?
Andrea Piana (25:13):
No, it was actually a very healthy and refreshing and conversation, so I genuinely appreciate this talk. Thank you very much.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (25:28):
Thanks for listening to We Are Not Doomed. I'm Jonah Geil-Neufeld with Puddle Creative. To find more episodes of the podcast, head on over to We Are Not doomed.com. You can find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast app. Until next time, have a great week.