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The world’s first green department store opens today
Eataly founder opens the doors to ambitious project Green Pea in Turin.
By JOHAN MAGNUSSON
9 Dec 2020

Oscar Farinetti is the Italian businessman, investor, and owner of food mall chain Eataly. His latest project, Green Pea in the southern area of Turin, is 15,000 sqm spread over five floors. Designed by architects Cristiana Catino and Carlo Grometto, it’s a resilient and eco-sustainable building in every detail. The shell is made up of a steel rib and wooden sunshade slats (made of wood from two forests destroyed in a storm two years ago) in which vegetation is inserted.

The building also uses a wide variety of renewable energy sources to reduce the carbon footprint. That includes geothermal wells, photovoltaic panels, solar panels, mini wind turbines, and even piezoelectric floors capturing kinetic energy generated by the passage of users.

The mall consists of 72 different players, including a pool and a spa, a museum, a bookstore, and more than 20 home furnishing stores, all with a green mindset. The same goes for the 32 stores with sustainable clothing brands, including Patagonia, Zegna, Ecoalf, and Dedicated, whose CEO Johan Graffner participated in our Transformation Conference weeks ago.

— We’re very proud to be opening our store in Green Pea. The concept is visionary, the staff is educated and service-minded and the location is very nice. With this store, we want to show the Italian public that responsibly produced low impact fashion also can be contemporary and relatable from a fashion standpoint, he comments.