Dominique: ​[00:00:00] Hello, welcome to another episode of Green Champions.

Adam: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people, making real environmental change in the work that they do. I'm here with Dominique, our sustainability expert.

Dominique: And I'm so glad to be here alongside Adam, our social enterprise extraordinaire. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact in their job or community and did something about it.

Adam: Green Champions is a platform to share sustainability success stories, and plant new ideas.

Dominique: This is our mini series in Valbruna, Italy, highlighting an event called NanoValbruna.

Adam: NanoValbruna is an international forum that brings scientists, entrepreneurs, professors, professionals, journalists, science communicators, and especially young people, to the heart of the Julian Alps, to talk about innovation, environment, and regeneration. Dominique had the chance to attend NanoValbruna and capture the stories of their accomplishments, and so as you're listening, I'm also [00:01:00] here equally excited to hear this episode.

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Dominique: Today, I am joined by Paolo Licata. He is a tech entrepreneur, an impact entrepreneur, and he is particularly the previous innovation contest winner within NanoValbruna's Innovation Contest for startups. Today we're talking about tech, entrepreneurship and the impact that NanoValbruna has had on Paolo's career as someone who works in sustainability.

So thanks for joining us today, Paolo.

Paolo: Wow. Dominique, thanks for hosting me. Actually, should I go for, with an introduction?

Dominique: Anything you wanna add about yourself or you wanna..? 

Paolo: Yeah. You did great. Thank you. Also like the telling my surname was perfect. 

Dominique: Actually? Oh, good. Tell me more about you and your background. So I shared that you're an entrepreneur, but give us more context to what you do.

Paolo: Yeah, so actually my background is not technical, even if I work in deep tech. I started working casually as freelancer, organizing event when I was 16 years old. Then I turned like studying communication, like psychology and sociology at the university.

And in the meanwhile, I started like creating association and participating to some about [00:02:00] creating social impact entrepreneurship and enterprises, which actually make me relate with this topic. But I didn't know what that exactly was meaning, right? I was like just in my journeys doing following intuition because I was really naive and this is a thing that I'm missing right now sometimes. And then I just turned creating CO2NVERT, which was my company, and at the same time having a little success to start also my consulting company. So like this is me now. I do consultants for corporate as well as startups. And I do all my own startups.

Dominique: And when you're consulting now, are you coming at it from the perspective of a sustainability professional, or what are you bringing to those groups?

Paolo: That's a great question. Actually depends, mainly innovation, which impact. Sometimes somehow people and companies have to work in process, people and products. So what you do is, or I just change the way they are organizing their process to actually create a product or sell a product in the [00:03:00] market.

Otherwise I create new business units, or I do open innovation slash corporate venture building. So I invite them to launch a new line of product or service, depending on the company that can actually position their self in a new market that they are expert on. 

CO2NVERT: Turning CO2 into Sustainable Chemicals

Dominique: And you shared that you were the founder of CO2NVERT and that was the venture that came through the NanoValbruna Conference a couple years ago, can you just share the premise of your innovation idea there?

Paolo: Sure. Actually, CO2NVERT was born as an idea because as I mentioned, I'm not technical studying the market and the problems. And of course, I was relating with the CO2 emissions.

So actually there are already a lot of technologies trying to capture CO2 as well as reduce them. And I thought why we cannot use it as a resource? And this is why, like I started asking myself, what are the possibility in a tech way to use carbon dioxide to make like a value [00:04:00] out of it? Also because right now using it is the missing part of circular economy, right? And actually we validated it in a technical lab, and we did create a meta catalyst in a process that using carbon dioxide, we were creating sustainable chemicals such as ethanol, methane and also sustainable aviation fuel. This was CO2NVERT. 

Dominique: Interesting. And you also mentioned a naive sense of yourself before. When thinking about yourself as an entrepreneur, what does that mean to you? Are you saying that you came in not knowing a lot about innovation and startups when you first came to NanoValbruna?

Paolo: Yeah. So actually, I think that this kind of project, of course when you're young work, when naive thinking match experience. So what I actually matched in NanoValbruna was kind of experienced people believing in me and my ideas from United Nations to investors, to entrepreneurs telling me, "Wow, you're [00:05:00] great. You're doing well. Go ahead. It can work." And I was just 24 years old. So, I have been working a lot just to build reputation and credibility.

' Cause as we know, like young entrepreneurship is falling down, no one believe in youngs, but actually young, with the right experienced person that believe in the project and in the person is the right combination. So this is what NanoValbruna actually gave me.

Dominique: That's amazing. And I think that's such an incredible thing 'cause we need that in entrepreneurship broadly when we talk so much about how much there needs to be done around sustainability, to see them actually having a very positive impact on someone like you who had an idea wanting to help and not being sure where to start or how to apply themselves. That's just the magic of it all. It's also very cool that you work in tech and you shared that you're not an expert in tech.

Paolo: Yeah.

Dominique: Are you really passionate about this space? What do you think you bring as an entrepreneur? And why have you found yourself in that? I think that's interesting for people to listen and maybe wanna [00:06:00] be contributing to a field they're not an expert in. So I think it's interesting you do that. 

Paolo: So maybe someone can think opposite about what I'm saying but what I think is that somehow sometimes you see that technology built from a technical person just stay behind the innovation line, right? Because they know the limit of technology. So actually I was like, I think that right now we need something more because technology for now cannot solve problems. 

So I am a naive person in a deep tech, which is my passion because I want to understand things, and make them working in the market. So when I met, like I had a really amazing team from Stanford. Two PhD in Switzerland, postdoc, and also like chemical engineers with a lot of experience. And I say them, "Listen, I just want to push you to create a technology that you would say we cannot create. But I know that it's possible because like, in the future is a thing that aim to solve problems. And CO2 conversion is [00:07:00] already said that in 2027, 2028 will be a solution."

So what I wanted to do is let's anticipate it. Let's find the right technology and innovation to make it working. And like my dream as not technical person, my hope we're pushing technical people to get those goals and going behind the limits. 

Connecting Tech, Innovation, and the Environment

Dominique: And why do you care about connecting tech innovation, entrepreneurship to the environment? 

Paolo: Actually, right now I think making money is easy. There are always way to make money. This is why, like since the zero, I thought, "Okay, if I want to make something, if I want to do entrepreneurship, if I want to make money, I want to do them with an impact." 

Because right now it's not about because sustainability is a market trend. It's because, if you do entrepreneurship, you create values. So you cannot create values out of money. Those are just like something that you use to create value, right? So I think that the hardest challenge right now is to connect deep [00:08:00] tech or tech with the market. And I want to be the bridge between both of them because I understand technology and I understand humanlike thinking. And this is why I love to bridge between them and create value.

Dominique: That's very interesting.

Paolo: Thank you. 

Dominique: This year you're back in NanoValbruna and you are not on innovation team anymore. You've already won that contest. And you actually have already spoken to United Nations about your success. 

The Impact of Winning the NanoValbruna Contest

Dominique: Before I ask you about what you're doing this year at the conference, can you just share like what impact winning that contest had on your life besides the growth and the things you learned? I mean, you spoke at the UN, what was that experience like? Where did it take you?

Paolo: Sure. I think that that experience, first of all, the person that invited me at the United Nation were just pushing my confidence in like, keep pushing, right? So this was really exciting in a personal level, which contributed in perceiving the boost of CO2NVERT as a startup. Going to the United Nations was actually an experience that it's kind of, you [00:09:00] know, achieving a dream, like having the biggest stage in the world to talk about problems and actually solutions. 

Dominique: Yeah. Talk about impact. 

Yeah. And this is what actually NanoValbruna does. NanoValbruna shares solutions, the world shares problems. And this is like amazing because right now here we know like statistical data about what kind of problems we are addressing and we talk about niche problems and specific solution for that problems. And this is what actually NanoValbruna teach me as person, as an entrepreneur. And talking at the United Nations in New York was like the perfect stage to actually being able to also understand with myself what we were creating as a startup and as a part of NanoValbruna community. 

You're back this year as a speaker and a judge for the same innovation contest, and then you're speaking to educate the startups through workshops, right? What are you speaking about?

Paolo: So actually [00:10:00] the workshop will be, because it's going to be the morning before they will pitch. So what I thought is they have to disconnect before like the final workshop. So I want to do a like, change of paradigm. You have been doing one week of workshops in NanoValbruna. Now, I want you to switch the seat. So what you have learned about fundraising, about a go-to market strategy about patents and stuffs, use those thinking and skills to support no profit organization or incubators or accelerators that promote startups.

So now you have to think as you are an accelerator. How do an accelerator can build a reputation, expand in a national and international level, do fundraising to actually being able to support startups?

Dominique: Do you see that as a broader impact because you're now enabling more founders to go out and share the knowledge to create more solutions and build this needed space for startups?

Paolo: Yeah.

Dominique: That's awesome. [00:11:00] I think that's brilliant and I think they're very lucky to have you speaking to them in those workshops. I wanna talk about like a sustainability success story and talk about where you've seen success outside of this contest. And I know you do other work around innovation, other groups. Can you share a story of a time where you have had success or walked out of a room and been like, "Wow, I had an impact"?

Paolo: Yeah. Actually, I think that my success is involving people in my vision. And I have two main episodes but I will talk about the one related to CO2NVERT. Before CO2NVERT was born, I had like previous startup experience. But I didn't have that, let's say, confidence to share my real vision to the person I was with, right?

And CO2NVERT, of course, we won a lot of startup contest, also accelerator programs, investments and stuff like that. But one time we did work for one entire year to actually participate in [00:12:00] an opportunity to go in US to talk with investors and corporates. And it was like kind of competition and it was like at the beginning of the journeys, right? So we were kind of really literally in the validation of the idea. 

And after one year, really hard work, creating business plans, revalidating the idea in a marketing technological way, building a team of 10 people, everybody was really like, engaged. I just remembered the day that we were following the webinar online about that they will say the winner of the contest. And we were all together. And when they said CO2NVERT won, everybody was like having goosebumps. And I was like, wow, everybody was so happy. 

And it was like excited and at the same time, well-deserved. Like everybody in that room was sharing me the feeling that we could do it. And I was like, wow. And I think that that was my job, like finding people that can do a job better than me and actually are more [00:13:00] excited than me about results, right? And then I understood what a community, a team mean in terms of impact and entrepreneurship. 

Dominique: That's cool. 

A Sustainability Success Story: CO2NVERT's Journey

Dominique: And I wanna go back to the tech topic for a second, because if people are listening and thinking about being a part of a team like that, but they don't see themselves in tech, but they see the power of, I think tech is such an important part of this solution, how did you get educated enough to create a community like that, to get involved? Like how have you educated yourself in that space? 

Paolo: Yeah, actually, after the validation of the idea, of course I have been interviewing multinational companies that were emitting a lot of CO2. And at the same time, I was working with a chemical engineer to test in the lab if it was possible to convert CO2 into ethanol at the beginning as resource. After that, I was, okay. The market is as is demanding it, right? The technology is working. What should I do now? Now it's time to create a [00:14:00] team. I didn't know who I was looking for, what kind of tasks, responsibilities, skills. So I just said, "Okay, I want to meet a hundred people."

Dominique: Interesting take.

Paolo: I want to talk with a hundred people. 

Dominique: You, like work for yourself, huh? 

Paolo: Yeah. And then I will understand what I'm really looking for, because some people were explaining their self, what they're willing to do, what they're able to do. And then I was, "Okay, this is great. This is not, I don't need this." So I was just doing my bullet points of pros and cons. And after I think 56 interviews, I was, " damn", now I know all the roles and all the skills that the specific engineers can cover because of course, if you want the best person for a specific role, some like engineers are really vertical in some things, right? So you have to take care about that. 

And as a non-technical person, I didn't know because I'm always like horizontal in terms of skills. And so this is it, I found the people that after 20 minutes were excited about building something [00:15:00] together and they were like really expert in the CO2 conversion thermal and electrocatalysis. And at the end I understood the technical skills, I combined with the soft one and I said, "Okay, you are the ones."

Dominique: That's awesome. I think that speaks so much to your ability to put in the hard work. And also see where the need is and understand people. I think that's a tough part of founding any team is there's just so much people. But you studied psychology. 

Paolo: Yeah.

Dominique: Has that aided you in the way that you think about interacting with people, networking, team building? 

Paolo: Yeah. I think that sometimes we don't recognize it because we cannot always think about theories. It's hard to always have tons of theories in our mind. But I think that these kind of studies kind of boost your intuition. So sometimes when I have to make a decision fast, I just say, "Okay, those are all information that I studied in my past. I know I have experience. I will just follow my intuition. This is the [00:16:00] right person." And of course then I also find the psychology pattern and the reason why I did that decisions. 

Dominique: And when you're consulting with organizations now, whether big companies or startups, I guess I'm most curious what big companies, what is top of mind for them right now? What are they asking you to help with when comes to innovation?

Paolo: Corporates don't do innovation.

Dominique: But they're bringing you in for that, that's what you said? 

Paolo: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like internally, they don't do innovation. Like they have too much structure process and too much work going on that they are not able to see out of the box. So like what they ask me is actually the right questions for them because they don't know even what questions they have to face.

So what I always do is I start with asking them a lot of question, understanding the state of art, what they want to get, and then before starting being executive, I do some workshops with them about like awareness. I do create a roadmap about the goals that we want to achieve because of [00:17:00] course, we have to go step by step.

We cannot focus everybody in a big project. So we do a 24 months, let's say, of roadmap. And then, okay, in the first six months we will get these results. And then in the next six, we'll get this also in terms of engagement, because they want to be part of the innovation, but they have a lot of work to do, so creating new projects for corporates is also tough because they have to do more and they are employees, right? So there has to be a really, 360 plan about engagement, about education, and about sharing the vision of the company and where you want them to go.

Consulting with Corporations and Startups

Dominique: When thinking about those strategies you're building with teams and this plan of roadmap of where they could go and thinking about you're focusing on reducing their environmental impact sometimes, correct? So what would take, in your mind, you had a, you know, all the power in the world to change some systemic part of that team, or a broader part of the industry, can you share with us, like what would take to see the big changes that I'm sure you're putting at the end of a long road map?

Paolo: Yeah. Sometimes it's a matter of frame, so [00:18:00] sometimes you can put some impact in sustainability and social justice without putting it in front. Because if they need, if we have to be the leader of this market, sure, let's create the plan to be the leader of this market. And this is what I will tell you, but I can add some like strategy about social impact and sustainability that maybe at the beginning I won't share with you because you will lose the focus about your real goal and then you will lose trust on me. 

But like when we are getting the first results, I will just start changing the frames, saying, "Okay, if you want to be the leader of the market, you just don't have to follow competitive advantage solutions or like pricing strategy or marketing ones. You have to be more sustainable as well. " And then gradually, sometimes happen that sustainability become the real strategy together. But you cannot frame it at the beginning.

Dominique: [00:19:00] When you're doing these reports and working with big teams, doing workshops, I'm guessing you're dealing with a lot of stakeholders and having to get a lot of people on board, correct? And you just talked about the strength you have with people around teams and team building. How do you navigate stakeholders that are not seeing things the way that you are when you're trying to bring about change in a space like that? 

Paolo: Wow. As a consultant, I will answer, it depends. I really think that not everybody can be involved and I'm really transparent sometimes. 

Where I think there is a match between values, impact and market, there I will maybe work in a frame way. Where there is no chance, sometimes I'm just like, really direct in, "if this is your thinking, tell me how we can get like in this compromise, because I don't know, you know better." So it's just a matter of being honest. 

Dominique: So, asking questions, listening, those are tools that you lean on? 

Paolo: Yeah. And I will clarify, I know [00:20:00] how like you are not in my same position, it's fine. 

Dominique: You'll acknowledge that you guys are standing on different sides of the topic?

Paolo: Yeah. And this is where like we start creating a relation and then like we find to compromise. And those are actually the people that at the beginning maybe are the hardest to collaborate with, but then they will have the biggest change.

Creating Systemic Change in Sustainability

Dominique: When you're building a strategy and you're, when you're working on building a plan or helping organization change, can you share a common win you find early with a group? What's an easy win for most organizations from your point of view in the work that you do? 

Paolo: Problem understanding. Everybody's aware about problems. They just, the human being cannot focus every day on the problems because of course, if we think every day about all the problems that we have in our personal life, as well the professional one, we will just don't stand up from the bed.

Dominique: So is your role early on in the relationship to be an educator?

Paolo: Yeah. 

Dominique: Wow. Okay.

Paolo: So I just collect all the problems from what they will tell me. It's a matter of interviewing and understanding their [00:21:00] position and how they work every day. And then I'll just summarize them and like communicate them to the stakeholders and they will be like, "Wow, this is real." But they already knew. But like single together in a summarized way is already like a really goal and they make them aware about where they are. And it clarifies also about where they want to go.

Dominique: Very interesting.

How'd you learn to do that?

Paolo: I dunno. That's a great question. I just think that people undervalued a lot of stuff and I was doing this, I was just doing things and sometimes I was doing consultancies taken for granted that big entrepreneurs, big corporates, know already everything. And sometimes I fail in some consultancies because I did not follow the proper steps of a consultancy of maybe a small enterprises because I thought they already know everything. I don't have to make them aware about problems. 

Dominique: Yeah. 

Paolo: know, right?

Dominique: But they're human. You learn they're also human and they're busy humans, which are probably an even less aware level of human sometimes.

Yeah, that's it. Like understanding that [00:22:00] everybody here is a human. 

I often ask guests on the podcast what you see as the gap in sustainability that others are missing that you see. And it does sound like that is just like a deep understanding of the problem. People are sometimes assuming what they know. Is that maybe true?

Paolo: Wow. You want me to say what gap I see in sustainability?

Dominique: What do you think people often miss about sustainability that you wish they could see? 

Paolo: Being gradual. I mean like there are a lot of people that have extreme consideration about a specific topic and others that maybe just don't care. Right? And this is really extreme and I think that, I dunno if it works, that they are able to engage the other part being extreme and meeting at the middle. But the thing is that, for example, I have to take a lesson in US, right? I have to take a flight. I will emit a lot of CO2 doing that. Is this negative impact? No, it's not. Like I'm doing that for a reason, because like maybe in that lesson, I will create such an impact that actually kind of covers the emission that I'm emitting, right? And this is not quantitative. This is qualitative. And of course, like, how do you like evaluate it?

But you could do the lesson even online. Yes. But there are tons of reason that are more qualitative that actually kind of compensates the action that you're taking. And this can be applied to a lot of like thinkings, right.? 

Sometimes there is qualitative reasons behind quantitative and we have to be able to not be arrogant in communicating sustainability.

Dominique: I think that's a lot, but I think you're right, definitely of just the big picture view of there's not one solution and us just stopping things isn't also progress.

So I think it's amazing how you found yourself to dabble in different spaces, the way you consult with existing organizations to help them innovate and see potential. And then you're also growing as a person amidst all of it, and being an entrepreneur and creating new things that we need to have as solutions. Thank you so much for chatting with me, Paolo. I think it's time for us to get gelato. 

Paolo: Yeah, absolutely.

Dominique: This was very fun and I came here last year and met you and you were already a winner of the contest and it is just so cool to see and hear your story of how this organization has built you, because that's part of what they're doing, is building up young people and helping them see what they can do and amplifying initiatives in the process. So you are a great example of the purpose and mission of NanoValbruna.

Paolo: Thank you. Same to you.

Dominique: Before we close out the episode, Paolo, how can people could support you and follow the work that you're doing?

Paolo: Contacting me. My main touch actually is LinkedIn, and I would love to be contacted there also because I'm always looking to open my network to everybody and looking for people that are interested in entrepreneurship and impact. So [00:23:00] whenever you have any question or also you want to meet someone that is helpful in your specific job or your market niche or your expertise or your curiosity, I would be like, I would love to share the perfect name to you. And actually my Instagram handle is @paul_licata.  

Ciao. 

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Dominique: Adam, what'd you think of my chat with Paolo?

Adam: That was really fun hearing from him. What really stood out for me was the kind of support that he got in developing his idea, right? He'd gone to the United Nations, he came to NanoValbruna, but he was not technical in nature and he was building a technical company and I remember he spoke about how he went and talked to a hundred different people and really to validate that idea and build those connections. 

And it wasn't just these two accelerators he was going to, but he was going through other programs as well. So really putting that work to connect with people and talk to people as part of that.

My takeaway is that the people around him [00:24:00] really help give him confidence and help lift him up. And sometimes that's a barrier for young entrepreneurs and something to just be a reminder that we need to support each other if we're gonna be successful in creating new ventures that impact the planet.

Dominique: Yeah, definitely. I can attest just being in a room with Paolo that he is a good example of confidence and energy, which I think are really essential skills to having a strong founder on top of all the other wonderful things you're just supposed to be but those are kind of things that gives some control over and you can build on is soft skills and they really show.

And yeah, I think especially with this series, sharing NanoValbruna's story, being hopefully an example for other organizations to embody, I think the idea that they have really empowered these young people to feel confident, to talk to so many people and get so much feedback.

Adam: Yeah. And it's fun to see that it's meant so much that he's now back as a mentor and a judge supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Dominique: Yeah, absolutely.

Adam: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We are here to put real names and stories [00:25:00] behind the idea that no matter your background, career, or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change.

Dominique: You can find our episodes and reach us at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us in your favorite podcast platform. Our music is by Zane Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions. We'll be digging into a another sustainability success story in our next episode. 

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