The authorship of a project is always collective, but somewhere there is a moment and specific people who trigger the process that, eventually, will lead to its realisation. This may sound like a cliché, but in the case of our magazine, it happened at a lunch table with Catia Bastioli, Gianni Silvestrini, and others from Kyoto Club. We were discussing how important, and timely, it would be to give the idea of renewability of matter the same visibility and familiarity that renewable energy technologies had long since achieved.
It was a matter of giving voice to a concept that had already taken shape in important industrial practices, and that would soon strongly characterise the economic policies of the European Union, and then spread as a global-scale phenomenon. Giving voice, and even more so face and image, to the most significant innovation trends – the circular economy, the bioeconomy – by making them readable and visible, aggregating it all under the umbrella of a unifying name, precisely, Renewable Matter.
After an “incubation” period and exchanges with many important players in different fields, in November 2014 Materia Rinnovabile / Renewable Matter was born with the required international reach. Theoretical elaboration, research and innovation, business, policy: the intention to represent in the broadest and most effective way what was changing in the relationship between the economy, the environment, and society defined the editorial line. With a marked attention to visual aspects, to the “face” of what we wanted to document, a goal brilliantly achieved thanks to Mauro Panzeri's graphic design.
The first issue represented the declaration of intent for a project that now reaches the 50-issue mark. Since then, the magazine has been able to attract the attention and participation of many of the protagonists in the areas listed above. It has been able to reach where it is most useful to inform and raise awareness: in universities, on policymakers' tables and in companies, with countless participations in national and international events and meetings.
Under the current editorship, the thematic scope and internationalisation has been expanded, with a great development of web activities. Today, Renewable Matter maintains its focus on innovation in the use of material resources, but analyzes all aspects. Critical and in-depth skills are recognised qualities of the magazine, which succeeds in the fundamental task of bringing the specific technical, process or product innovation, back to the broader scenarios in which they fit. From finance to politics, from education to science and culture, documenting one of the most important processes of change taking place, towards the inescapable goals of sustainability.
These 50 issues are a starting point, then, because as Kim Stanley Robinson effectively summarises in The Ministry for the Future, “Orthodox economics proved inadequate for the task and remained focused on its old analysis of capitalism, as if the latter were the only possible economic policy, thus paralysing the economic discipline, like a deer before the headlights of a car rushing toward it.” And this is not science fiction, but the reality that constantly motivates and inspires us.
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This article is also available in Italian / Questo articolo è disponibile anche in italiano
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