The success of the presentation of the ASviS 2019 report - Italy and the Sustainable Development Goals – of last October 4 in Rome, leads to some considerations on the subject and its impact on the current Italian situation.
First it must be considered participation in the event which was exceptionally broad and qualified. It was not a question of a young audience (no minister had granted authorization to the students!) but, one could say, that there was a predominant presence of the ruling class: those who work at various levels in society and presumably feel pushed to understand the meaning of possible new directives to guide one's own public or private action. A sign of sensitivity to the harsh criticism of young people? The sign of an ongoing process of progressive social awareness towards the issues, still not fully perceived, of sustainability? The answer will come over time and a lot will depend, as we will mention later, on the various issues to be resolved in this regard.
A second consideration concerns active institutional participation in the event with binding declarations of intent. The Report, in fact, was illustrated by Pierluigi Stefanini and Enrico Giovannini (President and Spokesman of the Alliance for Sustainable Development) in the presence of the Head of State and the President of Parliament Roberto Fico, the Minister of Economy Roberto Gualtieri and the new European Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni. To conclude, an intense discussion with qualified exponents of information: Giovanni Floris, Monica Paternesi, Giuseppina Paterniti Martello, Marco Tarquinio.
The commitments of the representatives of the national and European governments, as it was said, they were significant. The Minister of Economy who introduced in DEF the concept of sustainability as a founding criterion for the country's development has, among other things, promised: the establishment of an inter-ministerial committee at the CIPE to combat the effects of climate change; the next issue of green bonds; the revision of Industry 4.0 to encourage the improvement of production processes in the direction of sustainability. Paolo Gentiloni, for his part, as new commissioner for the economy and charged by President Ursula von der Leyen also with designing the coordination of economic, social and environmental policies towards an integrated approach to sustainability, announced that the objective of the new Commission is to make 1000 billion available for investments in environmental sustainability, and to review the energy taxation system. “The European Green Deal -claimed- it is perhaps the top priority for the new Commission in political, social, cultural and even economic terms"
Announcements which will be followed on a national and European scale by consistent behavior and consequent decisions? We will see soon.
A third order of considerations regards the content of the Report and its use. Following the indications of the UN for the 2030 Agenda, the drafters of the ASviS document have taken a systemic approach for the analysis of contemporary economic development, elaborating the trends over time of a very crowded framework of objectives (17). These are: health, gender equality, work, innovation, circular economy, cities, inequalities, quality of governance, peace, justice, international cooperation, education, climate change, poverty, sustainable food and agriculture, water, hygiene and health, energy system, seas and ecosystems. Between 2016 and 2017, Italy made progress for the first nine, remained stagnant for the next two, fell back for the remaining 6. Each objective is accompanied by a large number of targets, 169 in all. It is frankly not easy to express a considered overall judgment on the country's situation in terms of sustainability, even if it could certainly be argued that the overall level is not very satisfactory.
For use of the Report, it must be said that this is a very important work, which highlights situations of enormous risk, consolidated legislative deficiencies and differentiated responsibilities. It is to be hoped, in the evolutionary process that will characterize it, that it can play a decisive role in facilitating the definition of policies and their coordination for the purposes of overall sustainability. The objectives are not all the same in terms of social, economic, political and civil weight. Which times, which dimensions of resources, which processes of social and civil coalition, which (sustainable!) costs can be identified for each of them. The overall vision does not imply a juxtaposition of objectives but a scale of priorities and feasibility, the result of in-depth comparisons and evaluations. On this there is still a lot of work to do and many sensitivities and interests to reach.
In its fourth year, this Report has assumed recognized authority; it is pushing the political and governmental forces and substantial parts of civil society to take a direction oriented towards a sustainable structure of the country's economic and social development; it is providing the national community with the necessary elements of knowledge and analysis on the situations to follow and to change. It has actually become an essential reference. But the path to achieving sustainability in its full meaning is necessarily long. There are positive signs in society and in the country's production structure. The most sensitive political forces seem to want to take up the solicitations and opportunities. The intentions expressed by them will have to be followed by decisions capable of overcoming objective difficulties and fierce resistance. You are necessarily starting along a narrow path, all uphill. A path that the work of ASviS will always be able to facilitate better.
