An Imprese Edili News interview with Fabrizio Candoni, President and CEO of WeGreenIt, who tells the story of the birth and exponential growth of our company.
«We are in the spotlight of the construction world: many wonder how we got here without having a thirty-year history behind us, like other much more authoritative companies. We are the aliens of energy efficiency!”.
Can you tell us how WeGreenit was born?
Wegreenit was born from a fairly intense but rewarding ride. I started by drawing up a very simple, clear, and precise project that aimed to take action to reduce energy consumption.
I chose to invest in the greenest energy there is: that which we don’t consume. As our grandparents used to say, the first money you earn is the money you don’t spend!
To do this, I jumped on the first train that came along, the Ecobonus train. We were in fact among the first companies in Italy to break into the complex model of tax concessions. We risked a lot by getting on that train, and today, with 62 million in turnover, I would say we did well.
To what extent do you work with the Ecobonus?
When it comes to the Ecobonus, we are not talking about a classic construction but about a much more complex, fiscal and bureaucratic model.
We operate as a General Contractor, i.e., we manage the entire ‘package’ of an energy efficiency intervention at 360°, taking care of design, financing, and construction. Our technical team, consisting of engineers, architects, and project managers, directly carries out inspections, technical investigations, urban planning, building and design verifications, and follows and coordinates the construction site throughout its development. We then sub-contract all the construction and plant engineering work, and concentrate on the most critical and complex part to be managed, i.e., finance and project management.
Our company has a perfectly functioning tax drawer: we have signed a €100 million tax credit agreement with the Monte dei Paschi di Siena Bank and further commercial contracts are being finalised, and this has allowed us to work on major energy requalification projects.
Hundreds of construction companies have failed precisely because they have not been able to protect themselves by securing the financial side as we did. Construction can’t get far without finance.
What are the projects you are working on?
We have over 40 condominiums under construction, and we are specializing in “super condominiums”. That is, real estate complexes of 500 – 1000 residential units, certainly not a walk in the park from a management standpoint. In this area, we are working on three important projects.
We just started the energy efficiency works on the super condominium in via Mar Nero – Nikolajevka, in the Baggio district of Milan. A 40-million-euro intervention that involves 18 buildings and 550 apartments. We will soon start with the 20 buildings and the 1000 apartments in the Satellite District of Pioltello, a municipality in the eastern belt of Milan, which currently has important social and safety problems. And in September we will begin an even bigger intervention, worth 89 million euros, in the Lungofoglia district of Pesaro.
A great achievement for a company that has been around for such a short time. How was this possible in your opinion?
I have a team of about 70 people in which I strongly believe, and which will grow further in the coming months, and I have two strong wingmen in Filippo Loiodice, Technical Director, and Augusto Schieppati, who manages institutional relations. We have very strong partnerships with industry companies, such as Kerakoll, with whom we share an important environmental DNA and an ethical approach to business.
And suppliers who have provided and continue to provide us with accurate and timely material, even in these uncertain times.
We were able to distinguish ourselves from others for many reasons, and among them is certainly the fact that we have always paid everyone on a regular basis. This is not a given in the construction sector.
And after the Ecobonus? What will happen?
The numbers say that in 2021 we grew by +172%. We think we will triple our turnover again in 2022. We were very good at interpreting the Ecobonus because we were totally aligned with that business model.
The real challenge for us will be to continue to grow exponentially in the coming years. We are not just ‘builders’, we are first and foremost ‘efficiency builders’, and we will continue to be so even after the Ecobonus.
Whether it’s apartments, offices, companies, schools, hotels… we spend most of our lives in buildings, which in Europe are responsible for as much as 40 % of energy consumption. Investing in buildings is increasingly becoming a necessity, rather than a choice. And that is where we are intervening and will continue to intervene.
When it comes to the residential sector, we’re talking about all energy efficiency activities connected to condominiums. On the industrial side, we have given birth to Green Desk, a one-stop offering of integrated energy efficiency solutions for SMEs, which has already received a great response from energy-intensive companies, which, with the increase in costs, risk losing accounts.
The competitive advantage of this operation, in the industrial field, is above all having a single interlocutor, because as a certified ESCo (Energy Service Company) we provide all the necessary professional figures, in addition to acting as the general contractor.
For our hotel branch, important redevelopment projects are underway and will start in the coming months. Beyond the hotel bonuses, an incentive that lasted a very short time, hoteliers have understood that energy efficiency can visibly improve the comfort and value of their structures as well as increase customer satisfaction.
An investment that combines environmental sustainability, quality of services, aesthetics, and cost savings, destined to bear fruit in both the short and long term.
We’re almost there and soon we will finally be able to talk about it. We can’t wait to give life to the new projects we have in the pipeline.
Full interview on Imprese Edili, edited by Marco Caserio.
