A company with a "green soul" and a strong commitment towards innovation, located in Vicenza, in the north-east of Italy. Eurven is a member of the Euromeccanica group of companies (150 employees and 40 million euros of yearly turnover) and its core business is waste management, more specifically compaction. We asked Carlo Venturato, Business Developer at Eurven, to tell us more about the company's key strengths, the prospects regarding foreign markets and future projects.

Mr Venturato, what is the added value of a company such as Eurven?

One of the key strengths is the market positioning, partly due to the fact that we are part of the Euromeccanica group. We exploit the many patents created to reduce the volume of waste, in particular for their compaction, which allows our clients to reduce handling costs; and in this way we create loyal customers. One of the best examples is a series of initiatives we have implemented in the Gardaland amusement park in synergy with other leading companies, some of which international, such as Coca Cola: our product "Greeny" has given the opportunity to many visitors to dispose of their canned drinks properly. We have also made an important business agreement with Acqua San Benedetto (translator's note: leading Italian bottled water producer) at another amusement park - Mirabilandia - for the disposal of PET bottles. At the Ecomondo fair we introduced Big Belly Solar, a waste paper basket with an integrated solar-operated compactor, which allows the reduction by 80% of waste collection runs, thus contributing to the reduction of harmful gas emissions.

What is Eurven's strategy in the foreign markets?

Italy is our main market, but we see the foreign markets as an important channel for the sales of our products: Brazil in particular, where Eurven Brazil, a partly-controlled company, handles their marketing and sales. We are already present in Europe, in countries like Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Romania and Spain. We are also active in Saudi Arabia, in the Horn of Africa and Marocco, a country with a huge waste problem - they produce a great amount of waste and the Ministry of the Environment is evaluating the possibility of using Eurven products.

Who do you work with mainly?

A large portion of our clients are private companies (some are multinational, such as Ikea), but we also work with local entities interested in using waste compacting products in their territory.

What does the future hold for Eurven?

Our key focus is always innovation, and as we are part of the Euromeccanica group we have the undisputed advantage of being able to create tailor-made products to best fit our clients' requirements. An important fact is that ours is a 100% made in Italy product - both the components and the manufacture. We have never outsourced production, everything is manufactured at our Vicenza plant.