WHEN ETHICS BECOME RESPONSIBILITY

We are living through a highly stimulating moment in history, when values such as sustainability, quality and responsibility can no longer be just empty words, but need to be made reality. In a fast and global market, and with an increasingly informed clientèle, this is the only way for a company achieve success. The distinction to be drawn is between companies that have developed these criteria over time and those that were born with this precise vocation: Iris Ceramica Group, the largest Italian group producing high-end technical ceramics and porcelain stoneware, undoubtedly belongs to the latter group.

Founded in 1961 as Iris Ceramica, the Group’s first company was inspired by an ethical purpose expressed in the equation Ecology = Economy. This is a very specific matrix from which everything was born and which has continued to be essential. It was an enlightened and pioneering choice in an era, the early sixties, when certain values were not so well identified: these were the years of the economic boom, when it was enough to produce to get a financial return. Precisely in those years, Iris Ceramica had the visionary intuition that today makes the entire Group an all-round business model and which finds in consistency the driving force behing the goals achieved, in innovation and technology its most precious allies, in aesthetics and sustainability is its horizon. Based on all these elements the need to draw up this Sustainability Report arose spontaneously, which shows what has been done in this direction: not only a transparent and timely report, but a real testament to the commitment made to social and environmental improvement, to have an impact on the very concept of quality and sustainable growth.

But there is more. As a company, Iris Ceramica Group realizes that its social reputation is a heritage built consistently over time, particularly thanks to the vital contribution of all the people who worked on its consolidation, as well as its open and receptive dialogue with the community in the broad sense of human community. Only by listening to the expectations and desire for quality, beauty and value of this community, has the Group managed and still manages to engage in ensuring that civic sensitivity is applied to growth processes and to developing the common good. Seen from this perspective, financial results acquire a new meaning: the company becomes an ethical subject that responds to social demands with a constant commitment that affects all areas and aspects of its organization.