The history and development of an ethical enterprise

Water is the true wealth of humanity, not petroleum. For ownership of the planet’s “blue gold”, peoples are ready to fight: without water there is neither security nor prosperity, much less development. To understand what the economic and industrial developments of this scenario might be, Silvano Pedrollo visited Dubai in 1974, where water cost more than oil and people were already beginning to consider the latter a resource destined to run out. He was looking for investors interested in the new-technology pumps that he wanted to manufacture in Italy and a potential market for the sector.

Pedrollo’s market developed in just a few years: after Dubai the company made itself known throughout the Middle East. Then came Latin America, Africa... And then Bangladesh, where Silvano Pedrollo met a man who asked him to design an inexpensive, low-consumption pump that he would sell by the thousands. They built one that cost as much as a couple of pizzas and sent him enough of them for a province: peasants no longer had to depend on the rains, and that year the rice crop was more plentiful than it had ever been. The value of water had become real, concrete, and since then water installations are considered a primary good.

Back then the metropolis on the Persian Gulf was only a small town and no one could have imagined that that sand would bloom until it sprouted one of the most luxurious capitals in the world. Pedrollo met businessmen and officials of the Arab country and explained to them that, thanks to pumps, Water could gush forth from the desert. One of the most important electric pump manufacturers in the world had been born, with a commitment that it has always stood by: the future of the Pedrollo company would be to collaborate on the solution to the water problem.

For almost 40 years the Pedrollo group has been growing world-wide and continues to design and build pumps that help carry water where it is most needed. Where water pours forth, colour returns to the landscape and hope springs anew. With each well the most parched lands recover vigour. In the same way, Pedrollo believes that to bear fruit, solidarity is a commitment that has to be cultivated every day. Today more than ever companies need to have a social purpose, and feel the responsibility of doing their part to change the world, to help people and their countries grow.