Interview with Corrado Facco - CEO and General Manager of Certottica

From Certottica to Able - A point of reference for a constantly evolving sector

Corrado Facco told VEDERE what the Certottica Group represents today and what the strategic and operational direction for the future is.

by Isabella Morpurgo

Corrado Facco

Certottica (Italian Institute for the Certification of Optical Products) was founded in 1992 in Longarone, at the centre of the eyewear production district, on the initiative of a group of entrepreneurs supported by ANFAO (National Association of Optical Goods Manufacturers). Transformed in the meantime into the Certottica Group,consisting of Certottica Scarl, Dolomiticert Scarl, and Certdolomiti Ltd, today Certottica is a point of reference for the eyewear sector and a leader in issuing certificates of conformity for CE certification of optical products and body safety devices.

The arrival in 2021 of Corrado Facco in the role of CEO and General Manager and, six months later, of the new President Luca Businaro, has certainly given an important turning point to the Group’s evolution and activities, leading to the birth, last March of ABLE - Centro Sviluppo Competenze Belluno Dolomiti (Belluno Dolomites Competence Development Centre), the new centre specialised in advanced corporate and intercompany training at the service of businesses, born from the integration of the competences of the Certottica Group and Confindustria Belluno Dolomiti.

Only a month earlier, during Mido, the Certottica Group had presented itself with a completely renewed image. Corrado Facco had illustrated the Group’s new brand identity, with a mission summed up in a phrase by Henry Ford: ‘Coming together is a beginning. Staying together is progress. Working together is success’. A mission referring to the value of teamwork, in which everyone must play their part well in order to achieve excellence together. Today, the company and its subsidiaries have an online and social presence that enhances these changes; changes that have led it to be a privileged hub of knowledge and technological expertise for the relevant industries.

VEDERE asked Corrado Facco, who has become the driving force and soul of the Group in recent years, what Certottica Group means in the industry today and what we should expect in the future.

V. Certottica Group is expanding its boundaries and is now also targeting other sectors. Can you tell us the details?

C.F. In recent months we have been working to consolidate our position in the market and to spread our know-how to other production sectors as well, always bearing in mind the centrality of eyewear.

To give just one example, we have launched a project with Dolomiticert to create a consortium of leading companies in the sector to recycle mountain boots by recovering the polymers and waste materials from which they are made.

We have also transferred our know-how from the eyewear sector to the textile sector, applying laboratory tests traditionally used for eyewear to articles that include the use of ‘UV-Protection’ fabrics such as hats, bandanas and clothing in general; sectors that with eyewear share the aim of protecting people from the consequences of exposure to sunlight. In this way, we place our specialised laboratories at the disposal of companies to carry out tests on UV-protection fabrics, in compliance with the regulations in force in the main global marketplaces, Europe and America in the lead, with a specific focus on Australia. Australia is among the countries most sensitive to this problem, being the continent with the highest incidence rate of skin cancer in the world. This is the reason why it has had a very strict regulatory system in place since 1996, whereas many other nations have only recently adapted. We have, moreover, begun to develop a network of strategic relationships that will allow us to ensure added value for our organisation and identify ourselves as a benchmark for success within a fermenting industrial fabric, which represents a fundamental asset for our country’s economy.

V. With the ABLE project, you have also become a highly specialised source of updates. What led you to come up with this idea?

C.F. ABLE is a territorial – and not only - system project transversal to various production chains. It is in fact a leading high-tech competence hub for training, not only at regional level and not only in the eyewear industry. ABLE - Centro Sviluppo Competenze Belluno Dolomiti (Belluno Dolomites Skills Development Centre) - is the result of the integration of the know-how of the Certottica Training Area with that of Reviviscar, a company of Confindustria Belluno Dolomiti specialising in professional education and value-added services for companies. In this way, companies now have access to inter-company and corporate training courses, as well as tailor-made consultancy services for accessing dedicated funding, all in collaboration with the main University Poles and the relevant regional and national institutions. We are in a historical moment in which there is a shortage of skilled labour at a high level in comparison to the needs of the market.

Young people have radically changed their approach to work, and working in a factory is no longer seen as socially attractive. Moreover, there is often a profound mismatch between the skills possessed by young jobseekers and those required by companies. In the PNNR (the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan derived from the European RRF), a strong investment is planned to strengthen the ITS (Technical Institutes for Higher Education) and to offer adequate training to young people. This is to synchronise the mutual needs emerging between the new generations and businesses. It is necessary to change the perception of young people, explaining that ITS can be a valid alternative to university, bringing them closer to the culture of doing typical of Made in Italy. Being ready to enter the world of work or to re-enter it, in cases of job loss, is only possible if specific skills are improved, while remaining in line with the necessary and indispensable technological evolution. It is therefore necessary to support the various production chains through the creation of new professional figures; otherwise, we are at great risk of deindustrialisation.

I would like to underline the radical changes in technology that are changing the paradigm of how companies are organised, with the demand for energetic reskilling and upskilling of human capital.

ABLE is an active player in the post-graduate specialisation field, through the direct management of the I.T.S. for Eyewear Product Manager, now in its tenth edition. In particular, we are very satisfied with the course registrations we have received. To date, the school is the first and only post-graduate technical institute in Italy able to guarantee specific professional training for the eyewear sector. The Institute represents one of the central pillars of our extensive training programme. In fact, our ITS aims to respond to the needs of companies, training the talents of tomorrow through a course that not only ensures adequate theoretical preparation, but also guarantees practice in the best companies in the sector, which have always been partners of excellence in this programme.

On 20 July, with pride and satisfaction, we conferred the degrees to 14 students of the ITS for Eyewear Product Manager who completed the cycle of studies in the period 2021-2023.

V. Let’s talk about sustainability, and in particular your involvement in the CSE Awards presented and handed out during the last MIDO. Do you have other projects in this area?

C.F. CSE Award, Certified Sustainable Eyewear is the award that assesses sustainability in the eyewear sector at an international level. Recycling of materials, reduction of consumption in production and distribution processes, valorisation of the supply chain, elimination of waste, assessment of the degree of recyclability, use of renewable energies, and any certifications already held are some of the criteria used by the jury to decide the winners of the zero edition in the various categories.

The CSE award represents the concrete commitment that the Certottica Group, together with ANFAO and MIDO, is developing to arrive at a new certification system dedicated to eyewear products.

This process will enable “Made in Italy” companies - but not only - to have an international reference standard for product tracking and sustainability. In this way, the entire eyewear supply chain will be able to align itself with the best logics of certified eco-compatibility, respecting the most innovative criteria of responsibility and transparency towards consumers.

Last April, the preliminary results of the ‘Occhio al Bio!’ (Look at Bio!) project, developed by the Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering (DICAM) of the University of Trento in collaboration with Certottica, were also presented in Longarone. This project won the ‘Research & Development - Opportunities for Companies’ call for tenders promoted by the Cariverona Foundation in partnership with the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Trento e Rovereto in 2020.

The project aims to identify effective methodologies for the certification and proper end-of-life management of products based on bioplastics, thus providing further incentives for companies in the sector to produce more ‘green’ product lines.

The premises that guided its birth three years ago were based on the evidence that there were still few companies in the eyewear sector interested in producing lines of articles specifically based on bioplastics. This was mainly due to the lack of regulatory references on the subject. Today, companies in the sector, ready to intercept the changes, have taken important steps forward, showing themselves to be particularly sensitive to the subject. With ‘Occhio al Bio!’ we aim to give further support to these companies and to take another significant step towards innovation, establishing a symbology that allows the immediate recognition of a ‘bio-based’ product. At the same time, we want to identify effective methodologies for the correct end-of-life management of each product, in line with the new European environmental policies and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Also noteworthy is the possibility, highlighted by experts from Green Tech Italy and Innoven Srl, of starting a circular industrial chain with certain plastics and producing bioplastics from agricultural waste. In particular, such bioplastics would fully enter the list of potential new materials available to the eyewear sector.

V. What has been new in recent months?

C.F. In spring, we signed an agreement with the LVMH Group’s Institute of Trades of Excellence. This will allow some students of the ITS Eyewear Product Manager to be selected for a theoreticalpractical training course within the famous Maisons of the LVMH Group active in eyewear. The partnership will be active for at least the entire two-year period 2023/2025, involving a variable number of resources (up to a maximum of 5), chosen on the basis of their actual potential and aptitude with reference to the criteria of savoir-faire and savoir être required by the LVMH Group. In addition to attending ITS classes in the classroom at the International Polytechnic of Eyewear, selected students will be able to carry out the practical training (300 hours in the first year and 500 hours in the second year), envisaged in their study plan, at the Maisons Thélios and Louis Vuitton, both partners in the programme. They will also have access to Masterclasses directly managed by the LVMH Institute of Trades of Excellence with educational visits and targeted meetings on common themes and/or related to the Luxury universe. Lastly, at the end of the two-year course, there will be the possibility of obtaining the qualification of Advanced Technician qualification - Level 5 EQF (European Qualification Framework) and, for those who have distinguished themselves, also the Certificate of Excellence issued by the LVMH Institute of Trades of Excellence itself, as a further qualification of merit for the job market.

Moreover, last but not least, it should be mentioned that, for the third year running, a student from the ITS for Eyewear Product Manager in Longarone, Elisa Maestrelli, has been chosen to participate as a finalist in the prestigious International Lab of Mittelmoda Fashion Award competition, an event that attracts emerging stylists and fashion designers from the world’s best schools and will be awarded on 19 September in Milan.