Washington D.C., 14 October 2025 – Prestigious international recognition for Valerio Molinari, majority shareholder of the Ravenna-based Ecogest SpA group and CEO of Ecogest USA Corp., who was awarded the title of “Sustainability Champion” during the fourth edition of the Italian Design Week, an event promoted by IMARK and organised by Roberta Marcenaro, held in Washington D.C.
The award celebrates figures who have succeeded in combining innovation, social impact and industrial sustainability, making design and business culture tools of global competitiveness.
Molinari was awarded for his commitment to promoting models of sustainability applied to industrial processes, particularly in the field of green maintenance of transport infrastructures, where Ecogest was able to transform a traditional activity into a technologically advanced sector oriented towards the circular economy.
“This award is not only a prize conferred on the company I founded, on my family, which is actively involved in running the business, or on all my collaborators; it is above all recognition of the extraordinary capacity and potential that small and medium-sized Italian companies are able to express when they are called upon to export their know-how and Made in Italy products to the rest of the world,” said Valerio Molinari. In these more than 50 years on the domestic market, and in the last 10 on the international one, we have shown how an ancient artisan – and in some ways peasant – art of green maintenance of transport infrastructures can be transformed into an industrial activity with the support of the most modern technologies.”
The official award ceremony will be held during the Italian Design Week gala dinner, scheduled to take place in Washington D.C. on 16 January 2026, in the presence of representatives of the institutional, economic and cultural world, including the Ambassador of Italy to the United States Marco Peronaci, the Minister of Tourism Daniela Santanchè and top managers of companies such as Leonardo, ITA Airways and Starhotels.
The prize awarded to Molinari underlines how the business model developed by Ecogest – based on environmental sustainability, technological innovation and international vision – represents a concrete example of the industrial evolution of Made in Italy.
Founded more than fifty years ago in Ravenna, Ecogest SpA is today a leader in Italy and abroad in the sector of green maintenance of transport infrastructures, with activities already carried out in five European countries and an expansion plan in North America through its Canadian subsidiary Ecogest North America, in collaboration with the family holding Greenway Group.