Impact Report of Kilowatt's activities in 2022: a tool for reflecting on the challenges we have tried to meet and the results achieved, the travel companions, the lessons learned, the impacts generated.

1. —Impact report

2. We have to be realistic.
but realists of a larger reality.
Ursula Le Guin
Intro
Where can you find us
The magnitude of impact
Stakeholder Map
Company profile
Conclusion
Our indicators
Opportunities
Skeletons in the closet
Final considerations about the fututre
Methodological note
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
14
16
17
17

3. This Report is a snapshot of the year 2022, and it is the second
Report of the new Impact Strategy 2021-2025. For this reason we have
chosen the same format we used last year, so that the game expands
(as the number of variables is expanding for us too, really!) and the data
interpretation can be multi-year.
We actually feel we are indeed in a phase of enlargement and evolution.
We feel in that phase of an organism’s life that marks the transition
from childhood to adulthood, a transformative and sometimes
stormy, but also generative and exciting time that will end with the
coming of age.
We dedicated our buen ritiro of 2021 (our annual moment of sharing
dreams and strategies), in the windswept hills of Garfagnana, to sharing
the metaphors that represented the state and phase Kilowatt was in,
according to each one of us. We have always believed that the real
experience of subjects in their work practice, emotions, sensitivity,
fantasies and passions are fundamental elements for the understanding
of organizational action (as theorized by the strand of organizational
aesthetics studies). Symbols, metaphors, words, are therefore important
to have a deep understanding of a company. And that is why we shared
our projections and felt like solar systems and constellations, couples
and families, teenagers growing up… all images that remind stages
of transition in which the cards are reshuffled and in which the tensions
between conservation and revolution emerge.
These are extremely generative moments if you have the right tools
to manage them, fundamental moments because they define the type
of balance that will be generated later.
It was important to understand all of this. It was like redrawing the
boundaries of our world, finding us all still eager to live in it, albeit with
new roles and positions to discover. We have ascertained, however, that
the horizon has remained unchanged, namely:
We want to build desirable,
accessible, sustainable futures.

4. 1 1. Create new opportunities, be enablers ; 2. Rethinking the models of value
creation by putting at the center relationships, sustainability, culture, uniqueness
of each individual; 3. Contribute to spreading a desirable and viable ecosystem
imagery.
2 2. 4. Give work the same quality of leisure time.
What is the situation right now?
If we want to be realists, but realists of a larger reality, then we have to
combine “facts” and perceptions, lightening the rigidity of the former
and strengthening the narrative value of the latter. So, once again, we
tell you (and ourselves too) how we are and where we are, combining
quantitative data and qualitative elements, as complementary tools to
draw the Kilowatt map.
And in the map of Kilowatt, and of the Serre, in 2022 a new light was lit,
which in the coming years, we hope, will guide and welcome an ever growing
community between art and science, to promote possible solutions to
the climate crisis, solutions oriented to a new balance between Nature
and Culture. This is Serra Madre, our artistic production center, whose
construction site was finally inaugurated in 2022
We have experienced (and continue to manage) bureaucratic
complexities that have created tensions and frustrations, both within
Kilowatt – whose direct investment in regeneration has grown by
more than 30% due to unstable markets (our regeneration today
stands at 1.8 million euros). We have faced challenges also because
of the Italian system that does not facilitate those who want to reduce
their environmental footprint (we have been denied authorization to
install photovoltaic panels above an energy-intensive building like a
greenhouse).
But there is also a regenerative energy that comes from a community
that continues to grow around the Serre, with 155,000 people who
have spent their time in the Serre (+23% compared to 2021).
To nurture this community and its energy, and to move towards an idea
of space where you can dream of a change and there are the tools to
implement it (from the impact vision of the Serre), we have continued
to invest in cultural production, allocating 64,000 euros, and to
organize free cultural events (129 free out of 132 total) for a total of
98,000 euros allocated.
In addition, we have launched an onboarding path towards specific
audiences, with the medium-term goal of strengthening co-design and
involvement in research and development through culture.
This path led in 2022 to the launch of Kilowatt+, the corporate
membership of Kilowatt, that now has 7 organizations (including
companies and institutions).
We have also continued to work to rethink value creation models and to
spread a vision that leads to a desirable future and ecosystem. We have
done so by supporting 19 startups and 9 organizations on a journey
of strategic planning and business modeling based on an impact
vision, and by training 240 people.
Boundaries do not represent us, so we describe the expansion of
Kilowatt social structure in 2022 more as a relational expansion and as
the growth of the available resources to generate the impact we strive
for. Thanks to 3 investment funds (dedicated to cooperatives and
social impact companies), a company (the corporation Day), 5 natural
persons and the commitment of all 11 working partners, Kilowatt’s
nominal capital has in fact increased by 371 thousand euros, reaching
750 thousand euros.
The community, however, is also made up of working men and women,
and in 2022 we are 36 people with permanent contracts (more than
half of them are women).
Finally, we have calibrated our personal compass in order to orient
ourselves in the Kilowatt map (a fundamental practice, year after year),
bringing out each worker’s perceptions about how close we are
getting to our impact vision.
And opportunities and skeletons in the closet coexist together, tracing the
work to be done in 2023 and 2024. In fact, the perception of approaching
the most “outward-facing”¹dimensions is close to 8 out of 10, while the
perception of approaching the most “inward-facing”2 is only 6.7.

5. The magnitude of impact
We have always considered our organization, Kilowatt, and our
habitat, the Serre, as an organism, rather than as a machine.
The difference between the two lies in the fact that the machine is
complicated while the organism is complex, and this requires that we
have to recognize the multiple interactions that exist in a complex
system. The Theory of Change and the impact assessment, with all the
operational and governance tools, have helped us to build a shared
overview and define the aspects that can contribute to the achievement
of this strategic goal of the organism.
Our common goal is to make desirable, accessible and sustainable
futures possible. This vision represents the “condensation” of a
process of imagination and internal reflection that involves year after
year all areas of the organism.
With the aim of observing ourselves, rather than controlling ourselves,
we have defined four dimensions of impact, scopes and benchmarks,
which come from the common goal:
1. Creating new opportunities, being enablers for artists and
creatives, offering spaces and times of expression; for citizens
and families, generating opportunities for cultural confrontation
and contamination between different audiences; for the “grey
bracket”³, making projects that try to lower the threshold of access to
opportunities for a quality life.
2. Rethinking value creation models by putting relationships,
sustainability, culture, uniqueness of each person at the center,
because only this change will enable us to solve the biggest crises of
our time. The fields of activity are the business world, policy-making
processes, pedagogical and training models, lifestyles and consumption.
3 By “grey bracket” we mean that section of the population that does not fall within
the parameters of absolute poverty, but is still at risk of marginality.
3. Helping to spread a desirable and viable imaginary ecosystem, we
resist dystopian visions and fatalism that go with the dominant narratives
on climate change and the multiple crises we are experiencing: we want
to spread an approach to a future made of hope and possibility, where art
plays a central role in activating lateral approaches to observe, understand
and act. We do this starting from a tangible place, designed and managed
every day with this vision in mind: The Serre of the Giardini Margherita.
4. Give work the same quality of leisure time, as we believe that to
generate a positive change in the context we live in, we must first feel
good with ourselves: we want to commit ourselves so that everyone
feels valued and part of a shared project.
You will find the first 3 dimensions, we call them “external” dimensions,
in the deck of cards; on the other hand, you will find the fourth
dimension, the one facing more towards the inside of the organization,
in the company profile, in the pages that follow.
Our actions, projects, activities aimed at achieving the impact
dimensions described above include 9 (out of 17) goals for sustainable
development.

6. CONSULTING
INFORMATION CODESIGNING COPRODUCING COMANAGING
STAKEHOLDER MAP
*For the first time in our
stakeholder map, we have
included Nature, to give it
the relevance it actually has in
achieving our
impact vision.
It is also an invitation for us,
to consider it as a bearer of
of inalienable rights.
Neighbors Inhabitamts
of Bologna
Tourist
Business customers
and business ideas
Students
Financing
partners
Families (not
only Kwbaby) Research centers
Public
institutions
Corporate
membership
Sponsor
Coworkers
Beneficiaries of
our projects
Nature*
Organizations for-profit
and nonprofit that
operate generating impact
Authors/artists
(creators of imgery)
Employees and
collaborators
Cultural
operators
KW members

7. Company profile
As we always say, this is not a typical company profile. It does not present the
list of services that we can offer you, because they change and evolve together
with us. Instead, it is something deeper, and this should interest you even more
because it is the soul of the organization, which then influences products,
services, projects.
We start from the medium-term goal that we have set for our organization,
the inward looking one: to give work the same quality as leisure time.
We believe that to transform the collective imagination we have to start from
our relationship, and so from ourselves and from how we feel. To contribute
to this ambitious commitment, we are committed to making everyone feel
valued and part of a shared project.
Kilowatt is a working cooperative made of different souls operating in the
fields of social innovation, culture and art, communication, regeneration,
education and food. This project comes to life within the regenerated spaces
of Le Serre dei Giardini, a place of culture and model experimentation. “Our
home” is a fundamental part of achieving the impact goal.
We are a hybrid organization, consisting of a working cooperative that 100%
owns a LTD, a choice dictated by the desire to guarantee the continuous
socialization of any profits generated by the administration activity. This
organization has four souls:
Impact, Innovation and Communication: a creative ecosystem that
supports public and private organizations throughout the entire value
chain: from idea to design, from communication to engagement.
Cultural production and regeneration: from the Serre to Serra Madre,
cultural programming and production to entertain, train and to build
a dialogue between art and society (businesses, institutions, research
world, policy makers, citizens) aimed at promoting a deep ecological
transition.
Education: from the 0-6 KwBaby experimental educational service, to
training courses for educators and parents, to the activities of support
for families and lifelong training, based on the values of the Pedagogy of
Nature.
Eating and feeling good: from our Vetro bistro, which contains all our
passion for good, ethical, healthy and sustainable food, to the vegetable
garden and the hydroponic cultivation plant, all the activities and projects
that allow us to take care of the people and the environment through food.
We are a total of 36 employees with permanent contracts (out of 45
employees), divided into different areas. Even in the structure of the
same working areas we are constantly looking for a hybridization and a
contamination: some of the employees are cross-area and are involved in
different activities and cores.
In 2022, we recorded an increase in share capital by €371,106 (22
individuals and 7 legal entities participated in capital increases) and the
subscribed and paid-up share capital today amounts to €747,947. The
value of production (coop + LTD) also grew by +16%, in a positive trend that
has never stopped since the opening of the cooperative.
We worked with clients from different geographical areas (2
international, 18 national, 10 from Emilia Romagna, 44 from Bologna)
and sectors, including 10 Public Administrations, 1 Trade Association, 5
Foundations or Universities, 29 for-profit companies and 24 belonging to
the Third Sector. In addition, 60% of our clients chose us for the second time.
We are committed to our suppliers, we grant an average of 20 days for
invoices payment, only in 0.2% of the total transactions the payment times
exceeded the terms. Hoping that sooner or later we will be able to produce
renewable energy directly, at the moment we have renewable energy contracts
(electricity + gas) that have allowed us to save 46.6 tons of CO2
.
We are an organization with a variable and horizontal hierarchy. This
is a constant work of negotiation and empowerment, and can be read from
various indicators including the difference between the partners’ salary and
the lowest salary which is 1:1.4 (*in social enterprises the law provides that this
percentage should not exceed the ratio of 1:8).
We are proud to be a diverse and multicultural organisation: 9 different
nationalities worked with us in 2022.
And we are equally proud to be a women’s company, of the 36
employees 53% are women. In addition, we have activated 4 internships per
year (curricular, training, placement).

8. In conclusion
46,6 tonnes
of CO2 saved thanks to
renewable energy contracts
(electricity + gas)
1:1,4
ratio between
the salary of the
working partners
and the lowest
salary
SMEs
capitalized
22 natural persons, of which 11
working partners, and 7 legal entities
participated in capital increases
747.947 €
of subscribed and
paid-up share capital
60%
of customers
chose us for the
second time
Women's
business
53% of Kilowatt’s 36
employees are women
+16%
increase in total
turnover of Kilowatt in
2022 (coop + LTD)
8,23 out of 10
the average value that Kilowatt
employees give to the question
“how much does the work you
do enhance your passions and
bring out creativity?”
Multicultural
company
9 different nationalities worked with us

9. Creating new opportunities,
being enablers
—
Our
indicators
—
Impact,
innovation
and
communication
—
Cultural
production
and
regeneration

10. —
Education
Creating
new
opportunities,
being
enablers
—
Cultural
production
and
regeneration
—
Cultural
production
and
regeneration

11. Creating and spreading an
image (of development) of
ecosystem and desirable
—
Impact,
innovation
and
communication
—
Cultural
production
and
regeneration
—
Our
indicators

12. Creating
and
spreading
an
image
(of
development)
of
ecosystem
and
desirable
—
Cultural
production
and
regeneration
—
Cultural
production
and
regeneration
—
Cultural
production
and
regeneration
—
Cultural
production
and
regeneration
—
Education

13. Rethinking creation templates
of value by putting at the center
relationships, sustainability, the
culture, the uniqueness of each
person —
Impact,
innovation
and
communication
—
Impact,
innovation
and
communication
—
Our
indicators

14. —
Education
—
Education
Rethinking
creation
templates
of
values
by
puttingat
he
center
relationships,
sustainability,
the
culture,
the
uniqueness
of
each
person
—
Cultural
production
and
regeneration
—
Eating
health
and
wellbeing
—
Eating
health
and
wellbeing

15. o
p
portunit
i
e
s
—
Impact,
innovation
and
communication
—
Impact,
innovation
and
communication

16. —
Education
—
Impact,
innovation
and
communication
—
Impact,
innovation
and
communication

17. —
Impact,
innovation
and
communication
—
Impact,
innovation
and
communication
s
k
e
l
e
t
ons in thec
l
o
s
e
t
—
Eating
health
and
wellbeing

18. Final Considerations about the future
Muse, SHHHHHHH. tell us of that man of many devices, who wandered full
many ways after he had sacked We have spoken enough, the sacred citadel
of Troy; now we want to be silent, and invite you, reader, Many were the
men whose cities he saw and whose mind he learned; to do the same. and
many the woes he suffered in his heart upon the sea, seeking to win his own
life, To stop and keep silent, to perceive And the return of his comrades: the
background noise Yet even so he saved not his comrades. for through their
own blind folly they perished. Fools! who devoured the kine of Helios Hyperion
with that is the basis of relationships, unpious tooth of stories, of life. he took
from them the day of their returning. Of these things, beginning where thou
wilt, tell thou even unto us. The ability to stop ourselves, goddess, daughter of
Zeus. So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely
home. and to observe in silence, Muse, this is our commitment and wish for
2023 and 2024, of many devices Tell me, who wandered full many ways after
he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy; Many were the men whose cities
he saw and whose mind. he learned; and many the woes he suffered in his
heart upon the sea it is our contribution for through their own blind folly they
perished. Fools! who devoured the kine of Helios Hyperion; With an ungodly
tooth, and irritated to imagine a desirable, accessible and sustainable future,
but he took from them the day of their returning. Of these things, goddess,
daughter of Zeus, beginning where thou wilt, tell thou even unto us. Now
all the rest, to experiment new approaches as many as had escaped sheer
destruction, were at home. he learned; and many non-hierarchical, the woes
non-extractive, he suffered in his heart upon the sea, seeking to win his own life
and the return of his comrades non supremacy-based, Yet even so he saved
not his comrades. for through their own blind folly they perished. Fools! who
to meet the other and ourselves, devoured the kine of Helios Hyperion; and
to recognize that there is no emptiness but he took from them the day of their
returning. Of these things, goddess, daughter of Zeus, and there is no other,
beginning where thou wilt, tell thou even unto us. Now all the rest, as many as
had escaped sheer destruction, if not inside us.
Thanks to Emilio Isgrò for inspiring us to erase, to recreate.
Methodological note
Since 2016, we have been using the Theory of Change to guide our
strategic and observational process (internal and external). The
conceptual model of ToC starts from a vision of desired change in the
long term to achieve goals established upstream. This methodology
has been hybridized and integrated with community organizing,
relational art, lean thinking and scenario design to combine different
points of view and approaches. Our goal is to make impact planning and
assessment a set of corporate governance tools.
This report is the result of a process that lasted over a year, which
involved the entire organization. We came together to review our
impact vision, chart of values and long-term goals, and then to define
qualitative and quantitative indicators for each area. These
indicators allow us to observe how we are progressing towards our
desired future and have also served as a learning opportunity and
an opportunity for the engaging the entire organization.
This Report offers a well-thought extract, according to the principles
of transparency and relevance, of all the indicators that we monitor
internally, collected through internal accounting tools or questionnaires
and in-depth interviews for qualitative data.

19. Imagined, designed and realized by: