ICMA San Giorgio has been awarded Phase 2 of the SME Instrument, securing approximately €1.7 million in funding for the ‘Ecosheet Pro’ project.

Legnano, 04 April 2017 - ICMA San Giorgio has been awarded Phase 2 of the SME Instrument, securing approximately €1.7 million in funding to implement the ‘Ecosheet Pro’ project. Out of 1,534 proposals submitted across Europe, the San Giorgio su Legnano-based company was one of only 66 beneficiaries—and one of just three Italian firms—to obtain European funding allocated by Horizon 2020.

ICMA, a leader in the design and construction of co-rotating twin-screw extruders and extrusion systems for plastics, has developed a highly innovative and sustainable concept: engineering an extrusion plant capable of producing technical sheets from mixed post-consumer plastics. The goal is to replace wood-based panels such as plywood, which are currently widely used in many manufacturing sectors, including construction.

“Thanks to the European Union funding,” Giorgio Colombo, CEO of ICMA San Giorgio, comments, “we have a great opportunity to develop a new technology together with our project partner, a British company already active in this field. It combines a fundamental ecological issue, such as deforestation, with the practical challenge of finding an industrial use for mixed post-consumer plastic waste—which is widespread and problematic in advanced economies—through an enabling technology like extrusion.”

Since 2014, the year the EU research and innovation programme began, ICMA San Giorgio is the only company in the Alto Milanese area to have passed Phase 2. This is an extraordinary achievement for the company, a member of Confindustria Alto Milanese, reached also thanks to the support of the Enterprise Europe Network, of which Confindustria Lombardia is a member, through the Sportello Europa office.

“The significant recognition obtained by ICMA,” states Andrea Pontani, Director of Confindustria Alto Milanese, “is further proof of an example of excellence in our region. It is a company that has always made innovation its main driver of competitiveness. This demonstrates that research and development activities are within reach for small and medium-sized enterprises, which, with the right support, are capable of accessing European programmes.”

“The awarding of approximately €1.7 million in European funding through the SME Instrument, Phase II - Horizon 2020 to ICMA San Giorgio represents another important result, demonstrating that the decision to join the EEN network through the SIMPLER consortium was a winning choice for companies in the Lombardy Confindustria system. Results are achieved because, as Confindustria Lombardia, we have long chosen to invest in skills and services that provide added value to businesses and prove to be one of the decisive factors for competitiveness,” declares the Secretary General of Confindustria Lombardia Silvia Pagani.

Attachments

• CS_SuccessStoryICMA_April2017.pdf