World’s first Green Retail Park, an entirely eco-sustainable concept store has opened in Turin: a project by Oscar Farinetti, founder of Eataly.
Green Pea is an unprecedented project which, with the motto “From duty to beauty”, that aims to change our shopping habits forever. Built in Turin, in the area of the former Carpano factory near the Lingotto multipurpose complex, it is located right next to Italy’s first Eataly store, which opened in 2007.
On December 9, 2020 the site opened to the public with 15,000 square meters based entirely on the idea of ‘Respect for Earth, Air, Water and People. The concept store is enveloped in wood, recovered from the forests of the Fiemme Valley and Belluno area, which were devastated by Storm Vaia in 2018; construction put a strong emphasis on using recyclable materials (steel, iron and glass) and on renewable energy, including geothermal wells, photovoltaic and solar panels as well as features that capture wind power and recover kinetic energy.
From duty to beauty: 15,000 sqm dedicated to changing your relationship with energy, movement, home, clothing and leisure. Here you can find beautiful places with a low impact on the environment – high quality, Made in Italy and in the world – experiences, events and all services necessary to live Green. Basically, you have available 66 shops, a museum, 3 eateries, a pool, a spa, and a club dedicated to the creative idleness. In total, 72 places where Respect from duty becomes beauty.
Oscar Farinetti describes Green Pea in the Video below. (Language: Italian)
The Business of it
The mall is hosted inside this first Green Retail Park and the third business project of the Farinetti family already involved in other innovative retail concepts such as Unieuro and Eataly, chain stores specialized respectively in selling domestic appliances and Italian food. Green Pea Srl is a new company with a majority owned (90%) by Eatinvest SpA whose major shareholders are three Italian families–Farinetti (60%), Nocivelli (20%) and Orecchia (10%).
Architectural Features
Green Pea was designed as an innovative and resilient element, sustainable in every detail , in order to allow the building to breathe and let it breathe , in harmony with the human being and with the natural elements. The shell of the building is formed by a steel rib and wooden sunshade slats : elements that create a texture in which vegetation is inserted , a real architectural material. Green Pea’s roof is an additional facade: a roof garden that reduces the building’s environmental impact, bringing nature back to a former industrial area of Turin.
The 4 internal floors of the building are illuminated by natural light and characterized by the close relationship with the vegetation that surrounds and merges with the building. A journey into sustainable values, in balance between outside and inside, between container and content, between Beauty and Respect .
Floor 0 – Life
This plan is dedicated to Green Pea’s Main Ecological Partners such as FCA offering the first electric car dealership, Enel X where you can recharge your electric car; Tim which will only sell refurbished phones here and therefore second-hand; Samsung, UniCredit , the City of Turin with a point for Turismo Torino, Argo and the Lavanderia Naturale Iride , a laundry that uses only rainwater and silica-based detergents, therefore more easily disposable. There is also the Green Pea Discovery Museum, an exhibition on screens where you can discover more about Green Pea and sustainability, starting from CO2 emissions, plastic in the seas, renewable energy and much more!
Floor 1 – Home
The first floor is dedicated to Home and Furnishings . Here you will find the offers of partners such as Whirlpool, Valcucine, Roda, Gervasoni, Riva 1920, Pianca, Rubelli, Artemide, Driade and FontanaArte, but also a space where you can ask for free advice from architects for the furnishing of your home, spaces for the choice of fabrics and materials and a choice of products, starting from the kitchen, in eco-sustainable materials at a ‘sustainable’ price. They will in fact be developed directly by Green Pea with a starting price of € 3000 for the kitchen for example.
Floor 2 – Fashion
We do know the importance of the environmental impact of the fashion industry on our lifestyle and our societies. The floor 2 is dedicated to fashion where we find brands dedicated to sustainability such as Ecoalf and Patagonia , local brands such as Produzione Lenta , and also brands that are looking towards sustainability for the first time, such as Borbonese which offers its own particular collection designed specifically for Green Pea created with leathers of La Granda, Slow Food Piedmontese meat presidium, so that no animal wastage is thrown away. On this level there is also a place for the Bespoke Tailoring of the past and the future with IGoodi, the 4D Body Scanning and Avatar Platform for B2B and B2C markets. The company’s technology helps creating digital avatars, or 3D models, by scanning human figures with the utmost precision and digitizing them in a few hours, enabling users to get the convergence between the physical and digital world. IGoodi is an incredible example of innovation also for the e-commerce world that can be the way to significantly reduce the number of returns.
Floor 3 – Beauty
The third floor is dedicated to beauty with the best Italian clothing brands: Ermenegildo Zegna, Brunello Cucinelli, Herno and SEASE where you can find collections dedicated to Green Pea developed with a view to sustainability. Ermenegildo Zegna has also created a small reproduction of that Oasi Zegna that we saw last year.
In addition to fashion. There is a section for Cosmetics curated by Allegro Natura , books with a Library curated by Feltrinelli, culture and food. A Pop Bistrot – 100 wines and Affini , in collaboration with Fontanafredda and Affini, and the starred restaurant Casa Vicina.
Floor 4 – Creative Leisure
The top floor is instead dedicated to Creative Idleness , a fundamental part of life lived critically and with respect for one’s person. The Floor hosts an exclusive, but also inclusive for everyone to access , the Otium Pea Club curated by To Be srl. Alkemy Spa, the Cocktail Bar and the first infinity pool in Turin overlooking the Alps – a place to relax and to spend some free time. A place that wants to be exclusive, but only in the sense of height and position, because it will not only be necessary to have a card to access the Roof Top, but you can enter during the day to access the spa and in the evening the cocktail bar will be open to all.
Green Pea is a big bet for its founders and for the city of Turin. It is in fact the first time that sustainability has been talked about on such a large scale. And it will perhaps be the first time that a public less attentive up to now can go and find products with a lighter environmental impact and produced in a more ethical way. We hope that this is only the first step towards a stronger, more coherent and available to all sustainability.
Image Credits: Green Pea SrL & Fabio Rovere, Italy