A company’s ecosystem must look to nature.’ Interview by Erica Canaia with Nicola Iacopelli
‘First of all, there is the strong awareness that ‘we are nature’; nature is not detached from us, but we are US. And the ecosystem of a company must also look at nature.’ Nicola Iacopelli told our ceo Erica Canaia. Today, companies cannot just do business: they must create value for the people and the territory in which they operate. Only in this way can they build a healthy working environment, where employees feel part of something bigger. True success is not just in the numbers, but in the impact you leave. Too many companies have tried to ride the sustainability fad without really believing in it and have failed. Instead, those who put their heart into what they do, creating real wealth, build a solid, shared future.
Nicola’s book Come comunicare la sostenibilità, published in the Liquid Diamonds notebooks, was the starting point for our CEO Erica Canaia to talk to Nicola about companies, sustainability, local welfare, profit and values.
Erica: It was exciting to read about the moment of change in your book Come comunicare la sostenibilità and I wish others would take inspiration as I did from reading you. Can you tell us about your project Bee it?
Nicola. My story of change started when my child, our child, saved an APE in the swimming pool of the residence where we lived. He was eight years old and went crazy with joy. We learned about the world of bees, and we never left from there. I come from a corporate background and liken the social life of bees to corporate life. The bees all work together for the common good, for one goal, collaborating. I spent a lot of money in the company on consultants to bring harmony and instead just take inspiration from the world of nature!
Erica: Can you tell us more about where you started from?
Nicola: Our food needs soil and bees. After realising that bees’ problem is nectar, we started a project that restores their food by regenerating abandoned or damaged soil. The regenerated soil becomes fertile again, at which point we plant it by sowing plants and flowers that are useful to bees. Then we take queen bees and new bee families and place them in this habitat. And bee oases are created! The great thing is that we also combine the social aspect, i.e. these oases are also created within spaces where associations that deal with fragility, inclusiveness, including children and young people, operate. So, inclusion and diversity are already built into the project itself. In addition, people get closer to nature and can regenerate themselves.
Erica: In the book you talk about sustainability and how it is integrated into the values of the company and the individual. You talk about having an impact today but also on tomorrow through a Business for Good
Nicola: It is right to continue to do business, in my view, because companies have to have revenue, but the question is: how to give back some of the profits with environmental or social activities? We have touched on a sensitive subject, in addition to turnover and numbers we want to talk about Business for Good.
Erica: At the leadership level, it is an interesting reasoning because the first step to sustainability is not an action but a mindset; you need purpose-connected leaders with an authentic ego.
Nicola: Let’s start from an axiom, if a company does not make a profit it is useless. I believe that business profit is fundamental, in fact I speak of sustainability as a tool for doing business for the common good. The theme of Business for Good lies precisely in the fact that every company today, in order to satisfy its needs, must make a profit and also share its values with a community. Today, 73% of end consumers predispose their choice towards products, goods and services oriented towards a common good, that have values in them, that go beyond the satisfaction of the good itself. So, an entrepreneur who wants his company to prosper cannot be more short-sighted. Turnover at all costs no longer exists, the short term no longer exists.
Erica: I strongly believe in FIMIC and I would like to tell entrepreneurs who are still focused solely and exclusively on profitability that they then miss out on the function of ‘common good’.
Nicola: Today people are very informed so you have to be genuine, truthful, authentic and consistent. Do you see the boom there has been with benefit company openings? Today 34% of companies that opened benefit companies in 2024 have already closed. Why? Because the value is not in them so it cannot work. In recent years I have become more and more sensitive to giving back in some way, both on a company and personal level, what I receive. Nowadays you also have to create a well-being in the area where the company is located and a company climate that makes everyone feel good. Finally, if you increase ‘attachment to the jersey’, that is, if you create a real sense of belonging, you increase the productivity of your team. Another aspect is respect and kindness towards oneself first, then towards others.
Erica: The Hive of Sustainability, always going back to your beloved bees, allows the reader to put into practice what they have read in the previous pages. Can you tell us about this path, to be done with pen and paper?
Nicola: The sustainability hive is a hexagon, like the real hive. The exercise I have set up asks: who do you want to be? What are your values? What do you like to do and what makes you feel good? I, for example, like to be honest, I like to look people in the eye, to be clean, so I choose to be that. So consequently, you have to ask yourself: what actions are consistent with what I am? What have I done that no longer belongs to me? What have I done that made me feel good? How do I communicate? How do I choose to communicate? If you answer truthfully, a coherent picture of who you are and what you do will emerge. And the moment you find your identity you can go and communicate it to the outside world, which is the last step.
Nicola Iacopelli and Bee It
Nicola, after a business background with experience in Italy and the USA, and after a personal event, the rescue of a bee by his child, founded BEE IT a benefit company that protects biodiversity. He believes in small actions that, when added together, generate big change for the common good: a more sustainable future for all. Nicola Iacopelli’s commitment translates into a business that combines passion and responsibility.
