MILAN (ITALPRESS) – Valentina Panetta and Massimiliano Cassano are the two winning journalists of the 2024 edition of the Fenice CONAI for young environmental journalism, the award that the National Packaging Consortium dedicates to new generations of journalists who have been working on sustainability and environmental issues.Panetta gets the Fenice in the audiovisual category for his report, published on the visual channel of the newspaper Il Messaggero, about Valori Ritrovati, i.e., the marketplace for anonymous or lost packages at Caritas: a circular economy project that since 2019 saves 35 thousand packages a year from being pulverized, allowing them to be recovered and resold at reduced prices for charity.Cassano instead wins the statuette in the written category for his article “Tottenham. Champions of Sustainability,” published in The Post International, in which he details why the English soccer club (sixth team in England in terms of the number of official titles won) has been honored for the fourth year as the most environmentally friendly in the Premier League.The awards were presented in Urbino on the evening of the opening day of the Festival of Cultural Journalism, in the Throne Room of the Ducal Palace. The winners received the Phoenixes from the hands of Simona Fontana, CONAI general manager.A professional journalist for Il Messaggero, Valentina Panetta has been writing for the Roman newspaper since 2020. Born in Rome in 1997, she holds a degree in Marketing & Digital Communication. “Sorting, discarding, throwing away. These are the habits of the most unrestrained consumerism that sometimes becomes intolerable when you don’t even get to open a package and it goes straight to the scrap heap,” she comments. “But there are those who oppose this logic in the name of sustainability and solidarity. The Found Values market rescues more than 35 thousand parcels each year: their contents are sold at bargain prices for buyers, and the proceeds go to the fight against poverty. After the service so many people wrote to us to be able to make their contribution. I thank the jury that awarded this work and gave credit to an important circular economy initiative. “Journalist who “has made his concern for the climate a job,” Massimiliano Cassano was born in Naples. Professionally trained in Rome, he took the green route after also covering sports and politics. “The phoenix reborn from its ashes as a symbol of circularity perfectly embodies the spirit we should all have toward what surrounds us,” he says, “especially in a consumer society that is relentlessly advancing. We are here to celebrate sustainability, not as a slogan to pin on a label but as a model of corporate, social, and life development. I want to be optimistic, the damages of the past cannot be erased, but we can recycle them to give a future to the next generations. “A special mention was also awarded to Francesca Caria, a RAI journalist, for her report broadcast by TgR Sardegna on the waste treatment plant in Arborea, in the province of Oristano. “The Consortium has always been a promoter of information and knowledge in the environmental protection panorama,” comments Simona Fontana. “A world in which scientific knowledge, preparation and analytical skills are needed. This award, after all, recognizes the competence of young journalists who deal with these topics. So congratulations to Valentina Panetta and Massimiliano Cassano, as well as Francesca Caria for her special mention: examples of competent and lucid journalistic passion. It is nice and meaningful to award them in a setting like the Urbino Cultural Journalism Festival, a hotbed of transparency and objectivity that is increasingly necessary for information professionals.”Joining the jury that chose the winners of the 2024 edition of the CONAI Fenice for Young Environmental Journalism were Elena Golino, president of the Cultural Commission of the Journalists’ Association; Daiana Paoli, Rai Tg1 editor-in-chief; Enza Prencipe, CONAI legal, corporate and general affairs manager; Manuela Ravasio, editor-in-chief of Elle; Roberta Scorranese, deputy news chief of Corriere della Sera and scientific director of the Master Arte in RCS Academy; Maria Pia Zorzi, Rai Tgr Veneto service chief; Luca Brivio, CONAI communications manager; Davide Russo, expert at the press and communications office of the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security; Gianni Todini, Askanews managing editor.Participation in the CONAI Phoenix for Young Environmental Journalism was open to all journalistic productions that appeared between April 22, 2023, and April 21, 2024, with World Earth Day (celebrated each year on April 22) serving as the watershed.The statuette is the seven-tailed phoenix spreading its wings, a symbol of rebirth for packaging materials as well, designed by a group of students from the School of Design at the Milan Polytechnic. It is made of a metal alloy subjected to a galvanic process and rests on a lava stone base.The CONAI Phoenix for Young Environmental Journalism is sponsored by the Ministry of Environment and Energy Security and the Order of Journalists. Main partner of the award is the Urbino Cultural Journalism Festival.
Photo uff. Press Conai(ITALPRESS).
