Aurelio Peccei founded the Club of Rome and promoted the international debate on the dysfunctions of economic growth and environmental protection. It is, as in other cases, a matter of an Italian better known abroad than at home. But building a better future also goes through awareness of our great past. Peccei's attention to such topical issues was part of his being a "citizen of the world". Hired as a manager at Fiat in the XNUMXs, his extraordinary aptitude for management led him to hold positions of responsibility in China and the USSR. After participating in the Resistance, militating in Justice and Freedom, he dedicated himself to relaunching Fiat in South America.
Already during the golden age of post-war economic recovery, Peccei reflected on the limits and contradictions of an uncoordinated economic growth on a global level and which did not take into account the imbalances between North and South and the environmental impact of human activities. From the mid-XNUMXs, simultaneously with his role as CEO of Olivetti, he devoted himself more intensely to the problems and dysfunctions of contemporary society and its cultural and development models. His vast and direct experience in many parts of the world developed in him the awareness that it was necessary to act globally to solve the many evils deriving from the cross-impact of factors such as population growth, poverty, degradation of the biosphere, energy problems, the crises of the financial and industrial system.
These reflections prompted him in 1968 to create a network of experts, the Club of Rome, aimed at tackling global problems in an innovative and global way, and to communicate and disseminate a new vision of global challenges in a clear and direct manner to an increasingly vast public. The Club's first report, The Limits to Growth, commissioned from experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was published in 1972 and had worldwide editorial success. The report's conclusions challenged the myth of endless growth, arguing that the rhythms of growth, demographic and economic, and of the exploitation of environmental resources, if unchanged, within 100 years would have led the planet to the collapse of the production system and to global ecological disaster.
The solution was the definition of a new balance between human needs and environmental sustainability, highlighting the importance of the behavior of the individual in his environment. The limits of development, appreciated, but also harshly criticized for the alarming data expressed, shared with its inspirer an optimistic and central vision of human potential. With remarkable foresight, Peccei saw in the dawn of the microelectronic revolution and in the massification of information the signs of man's ability to face the problems of the future, founding transnational institutions and efficient rules for a new world order on a new global ethic.
These days, the theme of sustainability is particularly involving for Western countries which, since the beginning of the XNUMXth century, have held world leadership – albeit with alternations between individual powers. Today the entire Western model, on which the Atlantic era was based in various ways, appears to be in crisis. Our country goes through these situations with suffering but we can instead claim a sort of primacy on the issue of sustainable development, thanks in particular to Peccei's foresight.
This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the publication of the famous study of 1972. The capacity for innovation, energy saving, etc. was probably underestimated, however the question posed by Peccei is still there and it was useless to remove the problem for decades. Think of how, especially with the affirmation of the neoliberal creed starting from the XNUMXs, the West had long convinced itself that it had reached a new golden age, known as the "great moderation" (permanently low inflation, low unemployment and high growth), just as the large imbalances that led to the current crisis were building up. In order to continue to play a driving role towards sustainability, the international community must remove modesty and pretense, instead of turning away from the premonitions of the Club of Rome.
