For this September’s Fuorisalone, Heineken has set up a “reusable” bar in the courtyard of the prestigious Palazzo Serbelloni, saving “6,539 kg of waste, 5,335 kilowatt-hours of energy, 21,128 kg of CO2e emissions and 25,108 litres of water”. The Greener bar is built with wood that fell near Amsterdam’s Heineken brewery, has no flooring (difficult to recycle, they explain), uses cushions made from discarded uniforms, sustainable energy, and so on. All this is accompanied by talks and meetings on sustainability and a lot of Formula 1 - which is not exactly a symbol of ecology, but we’ll get over that. And then DJ sets every night. There’s even a water hose with a crank to cool your beer bottle. The gap between the philosophy of the bar and the elegance of one of Milan’s favourite fashion locations will perhaps prompt a rethink of its aesthetics. This should be the step that will make us like the concept of sustainability more or else we will end up in the cardboard-coloured sadness of the Supersalone.
Palazzo Serbelloni is in Corso Venezia, 16 Milan. Open until 12th September, from 12 p.m. to 10.30 p.m.
(Alessandro Scarano)