Sustainability Channel

Premio alle Invenzioni: the patents of Bicocca

With eight patents selected from those conceded and 53 requests for patents deposited during the course of 2008, this year Pirelli also celebrated its innovative ability with the Awards for Inventions ceremony and the traditional presentation of gold and silver plaques.

Gold plaques for three product patents, two for the production process and three for materials were presented at the Castello degli Arcimboldi, Bicocca, on Thursday 26 November. The winners were 17 inventors of Pirelli Tyre and Parts, who received their plaques from the chairman of Pirelli, Marco Tronchetti Provera. Speakers who described the importance of the award-winning inventions were Francesco Gori, managing director of Pirelli Tyre and director general of Tyre and Parts, Pier Giovanni Giannesi, director of Industrial Property, and Maurizio Boiocchi, Pirelli Tyre Product director.

For the inventors of Pirelli Tyre, Pirelli Labs and Pirelli & C. Eco Technology, authors of the 53 patents deposited in 2008, there was the silver plaque ceremony on Monday 30 November in the Auditorium of the Pirelli Tyre Building, Bicocca. Speakers at that ceremony were Francesco Gori, Pier Giovanni Giannesi, Bruno Tronchetti Provera, managing director of Pirelli & C. Eco Technology, Maurizio Boiocchi and Enrico Albizzati of Pirelli Labs.

Pirelli ‘2009 top investor in China’

For “knowing best how to gather opportunities in the Chinese market”, Pirelli was presented with the 2009 Top Investor in China award in Milan on Wednesday 25 November as part of the 2009 China Awards organised by the Italy-China Foundation. A special evening which took place under the patronage of Italy’s Ministry for Economic Development and its Foreign Ministry in partnership with Italian Chamber of Commerce in China with a contribution of the Intesa San Paolo Bank, which saw Pirelli, together with other companies including Brembo, Italcementi and Iveco, as protagonists of Italian entrepreneurial activity, which had distinguished itself for the importance of its investments in China. The presentation of 2009 China Awards took place during a charity dinner, the proceeds from which will be donated to the Lifeline Express project, a hospital train that travels the most remote regions of China to cure cataracts.

The Pirelli Campus for health and safety at work has become one year old in Yanzhou

From 2008 to today, the school has allocated around 100 hours of training in five factories in the world ‘HSE Campus’, the Pirelli’s Group’s specialist health and safety training at work initiative, has become one year old after that first meeting in November 2008 at Izmit, Turkey, on the subject of ergonomics. The school of health and safety at work has enriched itself with new contents, which now include the analysis of risks, management and improvement of safety methods as well as the evaluation and management of the aspects of ergonomics, through the correct conduct of everyone in the company.

The main inspirer of ‘HSE Campus’ is that of evaluating specialist knowledge present in the company, making it available to whoever can obtain benefit from it for professional reasons, and in doing so grow the culture of health and safety at work within the Pirelli Group.

‘HSE Campus’ is an itinerate school: after the first lessons in Turkey, the initiative went to Carlisle (UK), Settimo Torinese, Bollate (Italy) and lastly Yanzhou (China) with satisfactory results.

Now under development are new courses on the evaluation of chemical risk, the best investigation techniques of the cause of accidents and systems for the improvement of safety in maintenance operations.