Cartiera is a social enterprise that makes and produces accessories made of leather and fabric. The enterprise is registered into the regional social cooperatives register and it has received several awards, such as Worth and EU4 Fair.
Weaving together Italian leather and African fabric, Cartiera makes bags, purses, clutches, backpacks, rucksacks, shopping bags, cases, object holders, change purses, business card holders, wallets, laptop and tablet cases. Simple objects, made with care and designed to be useful in everyday life. Cartiera is a “ Made in Italy” like never before.
Quick facts
Located in Marzabotto, Bologna, Italy
SDGs impacted by the company’ s activities: 1 , 3 , 8, 9 , 10, 11 , 12 , 13 , 17
Ethical fashion enterprise that offers concrete responses to the challenges of our time
Focused on inclusion, refugees, circular, re- population, climate, education
What new urban trades are created in the project?
With the aim of combating the risk of social exclusion, Cartiera’ s priority is the work placement of migrants, asylum seekers, and unemployed people working in an area characterized by strong depopulation and high poverty risk.
The Cartiera project intends to provide concrete answers in terms of inclusion starting from the Sustainable Development Goals set by the 2030 Agenda: SDG 1 - Overcoming poverty. Cartiera offers work to people in conditions of economic hardship, including migrants and asylum seekers.
SDG 3 - Health and well- being. Cartiera cares about the training and the individual path of its employees.
SDG 8 - Decent work and economic growth. Cartiera guarantees decent working conditions and encourages lasting, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth.
SDG 10 - Reduce inequalities. Cartiera contributes to the social cohesion of its local community, and it is a partner of the Ethical Fashion Initiative. This United Nations program promotes the development of migrants' countries of origin.
SDG 17 - Partnership for the objectives. Cartiera works within an international network that considers migration as a stage in a circular development process.
What societal benefit does the organization create?
The Cartiera project aims at supporting the Marzabotto / Lama di Reno hamlet – an area that has been subject to depopulation and a high risk of poverty for decades – in the dynamics of the ecological transition by tracing the guidelines for the requalification of an area that hopefully will become an important place for the recovery of secondary raw materials.
Within this path, the Cartiera workshop intends to involve the local civil society in an increasingly participatory process by realizing a real, local socio- cultural development. In fact, the Cartiera project aims to provide a systemic response to combat the various forms of poverty present in the area which the initiative insists on proposing work placement as a response to the economic, social, and relational poverty of people in disadvantaged conditions.
This approach, promoted by local public institutions ( Regione Emilia- Romagna) and undersigned by public and private stakeholders within the Pact for Work and Climate of 14 December 2020, is the expression of how important it is " to accelerate the ecological transition, aiming [ . . . ] at the circular economy and waste reduction " , also choosing " to consider the centrality of work and businesses, from small to large, as well as widespread and plural entrepreneurship, which in Emilia- Romagna f inds in cooperation and social work a factor of development, efficiency, and quality. "