Way2Global among the founding members of AssoBenefit

On 3 December 2018, our CEO and founder, Laura Gori, participated as a founding member in a presentation event for AssoBenefit, the first national association dedicated to Italian benefit corporations, at the Milan branch of Banca Prossima.

Benefit corporations are the manifestation of a business paradigm that is more advanced than ordinary companies, because their corporate purpose includes not only profit, but a positive impact on society and the environment.

The Italian legal model of benefit corporations (known as “Società Benefit”), inspired by the American B Corp movement, has earned Italy second place worldwide (after the US) in the number of companies that have adopted this innovative business paradigm.

AssoBenefit was set up to officially represent this group of Italian companies — a banner under which we can work together toward a common goal, as explained by its founders, who include the Hon. Mauro Del Barba as Chairman, Marco Morganti, CEO of Banca Prossima, and Roberto Randazzo, a lawyer who specializes in social entrepreneurship and impact finance.

“AssoBenefit is the Italian association of benefit corporations, a large coalition of B Corps and for B Corps with one mission: to associate, to facilitate the emergence of new companies and to support existing B Corps. This is its task, because we believe that these positive initiatives should have a common thread to change the economic model of development.” (Del Barba)

The association aims to be extremely flexible, with fluid legislation that leaves room for every company to take an original approach to developing toward a shared fixed goal, while future prospects are yet to take form. Any benefit corporation and any company intending to pursue this path can join the association.

“Things are still not yet fully defined, but the direction of travel is. It is important not to waste the opportunity – this is the purpose of the association founded today.” (Morganti)

AssoBenefit is crucial in the debate on new forms of business that intend to improve their environmental and social impact on a global level. This is the significance of the front-line participation of Way2Global, guided by its founder and CEO Laura Gori. Our company, which was founded as a “Società Benefit” and is a certified B Corp, is determined to gradually consolidate its role as a sustainable company and to spread it throughout the world to positively influence other companies.

For us at Way2Global – as Laura remarked at the association’s debut – being a Benefit Corporation is the natural evolution of a process of corporate social responsibility that has been important to our identity for 30 years. For this reason, we voluntarily put ourselves forward on this occasion as co-protagonists and supporters of this futuristic business model that promotes social innovation. We did so both as co-founders of AssoBenefit and by announcing the “Made in B Italy” publishing project, which aims to share the proliferation of B Corp initiatives in Italy, to promote them and to communicate the “B model” abroad as an Italian business role model.

Since our core business consists of translation for sectors such as legal, finance, fashion and energy, we know how much awareness there is of sustainability and how sharing such a value system with customers can give companies a healthy, powerful competitive edge.

We strongly believe that, for companies, addressing social and environmental issues is not a forced choice, but an economic stimulus, as well as the only way that we have today of generating systemic change, introducing a new industrial policy and building a more sustainable future. This is why we believe in and support AssoBenefit, an important step in the journey to a better future.