Barbara B was founded in 2007, in Turin, by a group of young entrepreneurs raised and educated within the Catholic tradition of the city’s social saints. In 2010, it participated in and won its first contract for the management of cemetery services on behalf of the City of Moncalieri (TO). Since then, year after year, Barbara B has seen its cemetery service revenues grow, and these now represent 70% of the Cooperative’s turnover (which, also in 2024, exceeds 15 million euros in consolidated revenue).

Barbara B is a social cooperative that has always interpreted its role not merely as a service provider but as a partner to local municipal administrations. In its contractual work, it strives to embody the principle of subsidiarity enshrined in Article 118 of the Italian Constitution: carrying out private initiative in the public interest, a concept also echoed in Article 1 of Law 381/91 on the regulation of social cooperatives:

Article 1 — Definition
Social cooperatives aim to pursue the general interest of the community in promoting human development and social integration of citizens.

Although Barbara B has expanded at national and European levels over time, it has maintained strong roots in the metropolitan area of Turin, both in terms of service management and in launching projects for employment and social inclusion.

Today, Barbara B manages cemetery services in major cities such as Vercelli, Trieste, Naples, Frosinone, Pistoia, Prato, Matera, and Syracuse; and mortuary services throughout the Friuli Venezia Giulia region (recently reawarded for another three years). We are also present in Almuñécar, Granada, Spain, where we manage cemetery services for the local municipality.

Moreover, we are the social cooperative that, under concession from the City of Moncalieri, manages new spaces dedicated to social inclusion such as the “Turati” and “San Pietro” bocce clubs. In 2024, together with the Avvalorando Association and AMA Factory ETS, we launched a performing arts lab specifically for young adults incarcerated at the Lorusso and Cutugno prison in Turin. We also work continuously with social and health services in municipalities around Turin to activate new employment inclusion paths.

We are a company that, over the years, has been able to maintain its identity as a social cooperative, even amid sustained business development, and continues to promote human and social growth within its local context.

This commitment has not hindered but rather fueled a process of increasing professionalism and specialization aimed at improving our service delivery. This progress is reflected in the following achievements:

• Barbara B has an Integrated Management System certified according to standards UNI EN ISO 9001:2015, UNI EN ISO 14001:2015, UNI EN ISO 45001:2018
• It has also obtained the following certifications:
  • SA8000 for corporate social responsibility
  • UNI PdR 125:2022 for gender equality
  • UNI EN 15017:2019 for cemetery service quality
  • ISO 37001:2016 for anti-corruption
• Since 2019, it has revised its organizational structure in compliance with Legislative Decree 231/01 (corporate liability for certain types of crimes), including the appointment of a Supervisory Body.
• Since 2017, Barbara B has measured and monitored its carbon footprint, using only low-impact equipment and materials to reduce CO2 emissions and noise.
• Barbara B is licensed to use the SOS CAM software, allowing it to assess the environmental impact of its activities during the design phase, in line with Green Public Procurement (GPP) Minimum Environmental Criteria.

From the preface by Professor Mario Calderini to the book “The Flight of the Bumblebee – The Story of the Social Cooperative Barbara B”:

“Barbara B is, to me, a thread.

At one end, there is fragility; at the other, granite. Anyone reading this extraordinary story of entrepreneurship and social cooperation will feel as though they are holding a magical book: open it, and it tells all the world’s fragility; close it, and you’re left with an indescribable sense of solidity, strength, and hope. Then you open it again and once more find those stories of pain and vulnerability—but when you close it again, what stays in your hands and your heart is only the strength with which young women and men rebuilt their lives, and the determination of those who helped them. The three chapters of Anna’s life celebrate the strength of a young woman to whom life gave very little, and also the role of third sector organizations, and their ability to be there—where needed, when needed.

(…) Today, third sector organizations face a double challenge. First, to remind those urging them to hybridize or adopt profit-sector tools and models that their management practices are not simple or underdeveloped—but rather shaped by more complex and demanding constraints, first and foremost the creation of social value and the centrality of people and their stories. Second, to navigate this transition—marked by technology, finance, and hybridization—while protecting the purest part of the third sector’s DNA: that system of values made of reciprocity, relational goods, mutualism, cooperation, proximity, and gratuitousness that must always distinguish those who prioritize social purpose above all else.

Stories like the one told in these pages reassure us of the strength and resilience of the genetic code carried by those who choose to use cooperation as a tool to support the most vulnerable. Because today, anyone who claims to be capable of generating positive social impact—whether within or outside the third sector—must first ask themselves if they could do, for the lives of Anna, Antonio, Jerry, Sandro, Dalila, and Antonino, what Barbara B has done for them.”