Press release
Pordenone, 17-20 October 2007
ZOW Pordenone is held in an area that is one of Europe’s biggest concentrations of the furniture and furnishings/interiors industry. This seat of manufacturing has come to be known as the “Alto Livenza”, a vast area extending into the regions of Friuli
Venezia Giulia and Veneto, and running along both sides of the Livenza river.
Spanning the provinces of Treviso and Pordenone, this part of Italy’s northeast today hosts one of the country’s biggest industrial concentrations in the sector of wood products and furniture. The level of productive specialisation is very high: employees in the sector represent 61% of all employees in manufacturing.
Since the postwar period this area has seen constant industrial growth, developing an integrated system of companies that produce overall sales of 2 billion euro, a quarter of the national total, with production levels that are also higher in terms of quantity. A distinctive feature of the Livenza Furniture District is the average size of its companies, which is higher than the Italian average and also the regional averages for Veneto and
Friuli Venezia Giulia. The 11 municipalities of the Livenza district include some 800 companies which give work to 13,000 employees.
The district has recently made some major strategic decisions to close the gap that still exists in the added value that can be attributed to production. The local authorities have created a framework agreement aimed at obtaining EMAS registration (environmental certification) for the Furniture District in the province of
Pordenone, and the first step in this direction is the individual registration of ten companies operating in the sector and a sample municipality in the district (the municipality of Pasiano), as well as promoting the adoption of product-oriented environmental management systems in the most environmentally-advanced companies.
Once begun, this project will be a feather in the cap for the Furniture District because it will encourage quality and respect for environmental standards. “The woodworking sector,” Provincial Councillor for the Environment Fernando Padelletti told us, “counts for a lot on the Italian productive scene, and our district is the most important.

The spread of environmentally-advanced technologies and processes can become a reference model for other companies in the sector and can encourage the growth of competitiveness, especially if we leverage both the quality of products and the innovation of processes with an integrated policy approach that’s geared to a philosophy of product-oriented environmental management systems and therefore also aims at obtaining the Ecolabel brand for the most environmentally-advanced companies.”
The EMAS certification thus becomes a prestigious guarantee of environmental quality at European level. At the International Furniture Fair in Milan the companies of the
Livenza Furniture Consortium participated in a landslide: “The International Furniture
Fair,” Livenza Furniture Consortium President Omero Ronchese told us, “represents an important opportunity to associate the name of a company in our district with an initiative of such importance. The idea behind this activity, and the entire EMAS project, is that the reputation—that is, being publicly recognised as a socially and ethically responsible company—of being committed to respecting human rights and attentive to environmental management, is one of the most important resources for the identification and success of the company on international markets.”
The first two companies in the Livenza district to obtain the certification are Della
Valentina Office, a world-renowned company in the office furniture sector, and the municipality of Prata in Pordenone (one of the pilot municipalities in the project).
Another two Pordenone companies, Copat (specialising in kitchens) and Santarossa, as well as the municipality of Pasiano in Pordenone, are also about to receive EMAS certification.
Ronchese again: “Homogeneous production areas, such as for example the Pordenone furniture district, represent an important section of the economic fabric of Italy. The
EMAS environmental registration for areas like this will ensure a major added value on the international competitive scene, as well as for the socio-economic development of the entire area.”
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