If the corporate gifts to your employees or clients last year were yet another bottle of wine or piece of company swag, I'd encourage you to send this article to your HR department.
Italian B Corp startup VAIA offers sustainable Italian crafts with a difference, combining great designs with community collaboration.
And it all started with a storm.
I spoke to co-founder and CEO Federico Stefani, who explained that the startup's catalyst was the catastrophic storm VAIA, which raged from 27 October to 3 November 2018.
The " Vaia " storm hit Northern Italy, raging in the Alps of Trentino and Triveneto, the Prealps, and, to a lesser extent, Eastern Lombardia.
The Sisef (Italian Society of Forestry and Forest Ecology) has defined it as "an unprecedented phenomenon in the last 50 years at least".” Its advent tore apart the Alpine ecosystem: 437 affected municipalities, over 41.491 hectares of forest area, and a total of 8.7 million cubic meters of downed trees.
According to Stefani, the storm brought climate change close to home:
"When we think about climate change, we always connect it with something very far away from us. At 27, it was the first time in my life that something affected me so strongly. I spent 80 per cent of my childhood in the forest, playing and climbing trees. Now, that connection is broken."
From downed trees to thriving forest regeneration
VAIA was founded a year after the storm, developing the Cube amplifier for commercial release – originally a gift created by Stefani's grandfather, aged 92, before the storm.
The Cube is a natural amplifier made from the wood of trees felled by the Vaia storm.
It represents a broader commitment by the company to regenerate territories and local communities by upcycling locally sourced materials, collaborating with local artisans and businesses, and reinvesting profits back into the community.
The company has sold over 30,000 Cubes globally in 38 countries.
Stefani shared:
"I wanted to unite the technology of the smartphone that is faster, creating a lot of opportunity, something slow, fast and slow, and an object that could reach every person in the world.
Everyone has a phone, and I wanted to bring people to an impact, to a connection with a place, and to restore that connection between humans and nature."
The Cube was followed by VAIA Focus, a visual amplifier for smartphones that enlarges the screen without digital components. It is made from reclaimed wood and uses Fresnel lenses carefully crafted by local artisans to provide clear, high-quality vision.
The packaging is made entirely from geotextile panels sourced from the Presena Glacier. In partnership with the Summit Foundation, VAIA Focus supports the protection and cleaning of alpine glaciers.
The company's latest product is VAIA People, a wooden docking station co-designed with 200 Scuola Italiana Design students, featuring three stylised figures representing a community.
It charges your phone, earbuds, and Apple Watch and is made from the wood of the bark beetle, an insect that damages trees and is expected to damage around 100 million trees in the next few years.
Since its founding, the company has used over 250 tons of recovered wood, planted over 100,000 trees, cleaned up 10 Alpine glaciers, and recovered 4000 square metres of glacier geotextiles.
Community engagement is another pillar of VAIA's model: since 2023, the company has launched "The Forest of Innovators", a series of events bringing people together to foster connections and collaboration in which values such as trust, inclusion and sensitivity are central to the discussion and construction of this new regenerative model.
According to Stefani:
"We are a humble yet ambitious company. We began with a simple cube, then developed a unique focus – the smartphone screen.
We utilise innovative materials like glacier gel textile for our packaging, supporting the crucial work of glacier conservation in Northern Italy."
He envisions a future where all companies, particularly tech companies, adopt this approach.
"Instead of prioritising mass production, cost minimisation, and profit maximisation, they focus on creating products that benefit people and their communities.
Private companies have the unique opportunity to generate significant positive social and environmental impact, beyond simply pursuing profit.
For corporates, the VAIA offers products and services with a positive impact, aimed at actively supporting companies on a sustainability path consistent with ESG principles and the 2030 Agenda Goals. You can buy sustainable gifts and get involved in activities and projects developed in partnership with VAIA that can be reported in the sustainability report. It's a clever approach that combines craftsmanship, circular economy, and retail.
Stefani notes:
"Profit is essential to invest in the future. But at the same time, we must create local businesses and a local connection."
VAIA is now looking to develop biomaterials in southern Italy, where 15 million olive trees have been killed by a bacteria called Xylella, turning the trees into new products.
Lead image: Co-founder and CEO Federico Stefani with the VAIA Cube.
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