Today and tomorrow the Auditorium of the Academia Barilla Culinary Center will host a new event from PKN, the Parma Knowledge Network who has been very active recently with a series of events focused on the sustainability of the agriculture and food industry in the Italian Food Valley, the region surrounding Parma, our home base.

PKN recently held a seminar at Academia Barilla, on the topic of responsible carbon emissions, introducing the Chicago Climate Exchange at the food and agriculture producers of the Italian Food Valley, planning towards being the first agri-food district in the world to reach the zero quota in carbon emission by 2010!

Today and tomorrow PKN will discuss more production-related topics, such as quality standardization in food production on the first day of the event, and the organization of international supply chains for produce and vegetable products.

Gianluigi Zenti, Academia Barilla’s President, said that “being an absolute prime player in the food industry not only in the Italian Food Valley but worldwide, Academia Barilla is taking a lead role in food industry innovation, going beyond corporate social responsibility and getting more and more involved with key initiatives such as those promoted by the Chicago Climate Exchange and, locally, by the Parma Knowledge Network. And, being PKN our Parma neighbor,” he continued, “it is a pleasure and an honor for Academia Barilla to host their international conferences and initiatives“.

The two-day conference, in English and Italian with live translations, is moderated by special guest Mary L. Shelman, Phd., Director of the Agribusiness Program at the Harvard Business School and Chair of the Annual Agribusiness Conference in Boston. We see her very busy and with an heavy event schedule, but we will try to do our best to corner her for a brief interview for our blog. Can’t promise that, but we’ll try!

The event, being hosted at the Academia Barilla Culinary Center, will definitely benefit from the presence of the Academia Barilla Chef Team, who will be taking care of all gourmet networking breaks, lunch and dinners!

For more info on PKN, the Parma Knowledge Network, please visit the PKN website (Italian language only, sorry) at www.parmakn.org.

Last week Academia Barilla hosted in Parma a conference organized by PARMA KN , which is the acronym of the Parma Agrifood Research MAnagement Knowledge Network, on the topic of volunteer reduction of carbon emissions from the food industry players of the Italian Food Valley, the area of which Parma, hometown to Academia Barilla, is the capital.

Parma KN focuses on the development of research and innovation in the food industry; the knowledge network was represented at the conference, held at the Auditorium of the Academia Barilla Culinary Center, by PKN Project responsible Francesco Braga.

Among the other guests and speakers at the conference where also Carole Brookins, international consultant and authority on carbon emissions topics, and Michael Walsh, Vice President of the Chicago Climate Exchange, the world’s first global marketplace for integrating voluntary legally binding emissions reductions with emissions trading and offsets for all six greenhouse gases.

PKN is developing projects that will allow the Italian Food Valley food producers to position certified typical products quoted at the Climate Exchange in market such as the US and Japan, while pursuing the scope of reducing the carbon foot-print, the environmental impact created by the agricultural and food industries.

As discussed during the conference at Academia Barilla’s Auditorium, PKN and the food producers from the Italian Food Valley are moving towards transparent and responsible choices that will be able to improve present and future quality of life beyond food, while being viable as business, either economically and socially.

For more info on this topic we invite you to check out the websites of both PARMA KN and Chicago Climate Exchange websites, and to support socially responsible businesses who take action on carbon emissions.