5
Mar
MECSPE KICKS OFF 23RD EDITION Transition 5.0: digitization and sustainability at the heart of industrial evolution
Transition 5.0: digitization and sustainability at the heart of industrial evolution. According to the MECSPE Observatory (Osservatorio MECSPE), without incentives 7 out of 10 companies would have reduced or given up investments, and one in three will require them in 2025.
BolognaFiere kicks off the 23rd edition of MECSPE, the benchmark exhibition for manufacturing;
The MECSPE Observatory on Industry was presented today at MIMIT’s inaugural talk to highlight the crucial role of incentives in pushing the industry forward;
Along with MECSPE, METEF, the international exhibition for the aluminium supply chain, will also be held this year, with a focus on improving energy efficiency.
Bologna, March 5, 2025 – Incentives from the Transition 5.0 Plan, approved last year by MIMIT, are confirmed as a key factor for the innovation and competitiveness of the more than 526,000 active companies[1] in manufacturing, one of the key sectors for the national economy. Precisely because of the resources provided by the NRRP, 7 out of 10 entrepreneurs say they have made investments that they would not have been able to tackle or would have developed on their own to a small extent. This is what emerges from the MECSPE Observatory which offers an up-to-date look at the health of companies in the sector, with a focus on digitization, sustainability, and training, presented at the opening event of the 23rd edition of MECSPE, the benchmark trade show for manufacturing and innovations for industry, organized by Senaf and running at BolognaFiere until March 7.
The event, after the institutional greetings by Elena Mazzoni, Councillor for Digital Agenda, Legality, and Fight against Poverty of the Emilia-Romagna Region, saw the development of a talk on the topic of digital and energy transition in which participated Raffaele Spallone, Head of Division II – Policies for the digitalization of enterprises, innovation and analysis of productive sectors of the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy; Antonio Bruzzone, CEO of BolognaFiere; Ivo Nardella, President Senaf – Gruppo Tecniche Nuove, and Stefano Cattorini, General Manager BI-REX Competence Center, who shared data from the MECSPE Observatory on Industry related to the third quarter of 2024 with forecasts for 2025[2], offering an updated look at the health of companies in the sector, delving into topics such as new technologies, sustainability, and training.
The Observatory found that the majority of entrepreneurs in the sector (about 8 in 10) have a medium or high level of satisfaction related to their company’s current performance, with the overall level of confidence indicated as high by nearly half of the entrepreneurs. For nearly 60 percent of the companies, the 2024 turnover is stable or growing compared to 2023, while the order book, although slightly down from the last four-month period, is adequate for nearly two-thirds of the companies. However, there is some uncertainty about the future, related to critical factors reported by more than half of the entrepreneurs, represented mainly by energy costs related to international conflicts and their impact, and the difficulty of human resources recruitment.
Against this backdrop, the €6.3 billion made available by MIMIT’s Transition 5.0 Plan to support enterprises’ digital and energy transformation can play an important role in the sector’s evolution. In fact, the Observatory shows that one in two entrepreneurs rated the measures made available under the Plan positive or fairly positive. As of today, without the support of incentives—both 4.0 and 5.0—7 out of 10 companies would have given up making investments or reduced them considerably. The main benefits were increased productivity, improved technological instrumentation, and greater control of the production facility. Based on these results, one-third of entrepreneurs plan to apply for such incentives by 2025.
The plan’s main goal is to reward digitization and reduction of energy consumption, encouraging the transition of production processes to an energy-efficient, sustainable model based on renewable energy. To do this, innovation and digitization play a key role, and companies are moving to implement new technologies. According to the Observatory, 71 percent of entrepreneurs say their company has experienced digital growth in the past year, a figure up from last year. Among the technologies introduced are cybersecurity, connectivity/5G, and cloud computing excel; on the other hand, we see an increased growth rate in 2025 for artificial intelligence, and more and more entrepreneurs are considering introducing it. Remaining on the subject of AI, the majority of entrepreneurs continue to have positive views about it, and more than 6 out of 10 believe it will produce benefits. Numbers are up from last year. At the top of the main areas in which companies consider implementing AI is communication, followed by market analysis, control and quality, service and process supervision/automation.
Indeed, innovation toward Industry 5.0 also passes through sustainability and ESG criteria. Regarding corporate sustainability, nearly 4 in 10 companies describe themselves as fairly or very sustainable, almost half describe themselves as moderately sustainable, and only a few define themselves as not very or not at all sustainable. This data is an encouraging sign of companies’ focus on sustainability, yet still finds limited application when it comes to a real action such as measuring their CO2 footprint, which to date is only considered by 28 percent of companies, with another 28 percent of respondents planning to implement this type of measurement by 2025. These data confirm that, as much as more and more companies recognize the value of sustainability—59 percent of companies, in fact, include or plan to include ESG criteria in their corporate strategy—the path to its cross-company integration has yet to happen for many of them.
“Transition 5.0 represents a great opportunity for enterprises to meet the challenges posed by the twin transitions.” – speech by Raffaele Spallone, Head of Division II – Policies for the digitization of enterprises, innovation and analysis of productive sectors of the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy – “The 2025 Budget Law introduced several substantial changes to the discipline of the Transition 5.0 Plan to facilitate faster absorption of the allocated funds. Specifically, along with some procedural simplifications, the number of eligible parties has been expanded, the possibility of combining the plan with other incentives, including those of European derivation, has been introduced, the investment brackets have been simplified, and the scheme of surcharges on photovoltaics has been modified”
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