The Design economy continues to amaze. Indeed, How is Italian design doing after the two years of covid? We wrote and rewrote it from these columns: very good, let's export, second data from the FederlegnoArredo Study Centre, more and more furniture, chicchere, tiles, panels, cork stoppers, plates and pans, stoves and fireplaces and bathrooms, and we sell more and more of them in Italy too. But there is a little known fact that it is the real immaterial capital which is behind the made in Italy and in particular the much more important of the three "F", Food, Fashion and Furniture, that is the project, which in English means “design”.
Precisely on this formidable founding backstage, i.e. the combination of design, invention, communication and services that make our made in Italy manufacturing so innovative and different, has been investigating for 15 years the Symbola Foundation, created by Ermete Realacci, who presented the 20 edition of the ADI, the Association for Industrial Design, on Wednesday 2022 April Research design economy, with the evolution of this immaterial and material capital, indicating all the quantitative and qualitative aspects. The ponderous research was carried out not only by the Symbola foundation, but also by Deloitte Private and Polidesign in collaboration with ADI, Logotel, CUID, Comieco and AlmaLaurea.
Overcome the crisis of 2020
Design, understood in the acceptance of Symbola, which represents the added value of the sectors with the highest export rate (from 40 to 90 percent) closed 2020 at -18% but already in 2021 the majority of operators recorded and declared a consistent growth confirming an optimistic forecast also for 2022, despite the serious problems associated with high energy prices and the shortage of raw materials.
But, more interesting than the mood of the sector, however changeable given the current uncertainties, it is important to examine the many numbers listed by the research with an extraordinary wealth of information. With numerous firsts. First of all that of 30 companies from this background of innovation (largely in the North and Centre), with 61 jobs (many graduates and in any case with high cultural levels) which generated in 2020 an added value of 2,5 billion euros which largely add up to the almost 50 billion euros in turnover of the FederlegnoArredo supply chain.
In Europe, 1 employee out of 6 is Italian and with another first: more than other Europeans, it boasts projects and achievements with a high percentage of eco-sustainability. In addition, Italian furnishings are recognized as having world primacy as the bearer of a beauty which, according to the "Bello e Benfatto" research by Confindustria and SACE, is made up of a technological excellence of the various manufacturers.
Sustainability is the engine of the supply chain
The majority of these operators are in fact strongly engaged in daily research deco-sustainable solutions: 57,6 percent of the interviewees declare that they deal with durability, 43,4 percent with products with increasingly reduced consumption and with minimal waste; 34 percent look for solutions for the complete recycling of the designed product. And it is precisely the Italian furniture sector that generates around 70 percent of the demand for services for sustainable design, so much so that today one of the requisites recognized worldwide is precisely the ability to adapt the supply chain of the home system to the growing demand for circular economy productsand, ecological, recyclable. That is, the future of the way of living and inhabiting.
fashion and construction virtuous path
It is thanks to the design economy of Symbola's research that today it is possible to identify a virtuous path also for fashion – a still polluting supply chain – thanks to the positive experiences of the regeneration of the gigantic unsold tank that has always afflicted this sector. Through the rendering of the garments and their personalization even at the point of sale, we begin to plan and create important experiences.
On the other hand, it appears more difficult – as underlined by Regina De Albertis, president of Assimpredil Ance – to insert eco-sustainable and innovative planning into the very traditional sector of micro-enterprises making up the construction sector. But the inevitable demand for change grafted into all other sectors of the home system bodes well. Just as a datum emerging from the research proves to be positive for employment purposes, namely that the first estimate of the employment rate of two-year master's degree graduates in design 5 years after graduation returns a value of 91 percent occupancy, higher than the average of graduates in other disciplines. And of this 91 percent, no less than 84 percent carry out a profession consistent with the field of design. It should also be considered that having the primacy in Europe with the Politecnico di Milano as excellence for design, almost half of the graduates work abroad, in the wake of growing international demand.
