The General States of the Green Economy meeting held in November 2018 saw the Italian country protagonist for the slow conversion to Green City. The discussion was in fact focused on the lack of actions that pushed the major Italian cities to improve their own sustainability compared to the rest of the European countries.
The data collected on the major Italian regional capitals show the difficulty and the distance from what can be defined as a country with a green economy.
A further mistake that fosters this lack is the almost total absence of eco-sustainability promotion in urban spaces and its potential, leaving the population unaware of the possibilities that reserve, for example, the inclusion of more green areas (estimates indicate that only 5% of the total area occupied by the city is dedicated to public green areas, further decreasing estimates), or the improvement of a dilapidated building (over 70% of the buildings in Italy are over 40 years of age with consequent huge energy consumption).
The surveys mainly refer to building agglomerations that represent 85% of GDP, hosting 4 billion people and eroding 75% of useful resources, making up the largest share in terms of land use.
The lack of real and continuous measures involves an overuse of resources, water and energy waste, accumulation of waste and inability to dispose of them, increase of greenhouse gases, pollution, mental and physical illness of the population.
In fact, the data collected in the big cities have to alarm us:
in Italy there was the highest rate of premature deaths due to polluted air, 82% of the population is exposed to average annual PM10 levels above the OMS guidelines;
there is a waste of almost 40% of water before before using, due to losses in the general water supply;
spaces dedicated to urban green areas are less than 5% on the totality of city surfaces;
70% of buildings are over the age of 40;
In light of these problems, that place Italy far from the ideology of Sustainable politics, at the first National Conference of Green Cities the Guidelines to be undertaken to start the change of the country were presented.
We list some of them closer to us, but we strongly believe in the total implementation of the plan, if you want to read more about the complete document of the guidelines for the green city read here.
These are just a part of the fundamental points referred to by the Green City plan, for us the most significant points.
Certainly they are areas on which we could intervene with our solutions including, for example, our vertical green systems for urban areas, now saturated with cement and with predominantly artificial land occupation.
The results could be helpful for an initial approach to the green economy, the vertical gardens made up of 90% of living essences are able to absorb CO2 and release oxygen, improving the air quality in urban areas, with a double effect, a pollution decrease and a greenhouse effect decrease.
Large green-coated surfaces provide thermal and electrical savings, in fact they are real thermal insulators. A green façade means warmer environments in winter and cooler in summer, diminishing the use of electronic heating / cooling appliances.
It goes without saying that the presence of nature in urban areas, in addition to improving the technical characteristics of buildings, increases the general well-being of the population due to a series of improvements in the daily lifestyle, starting from being able to simply breathe more clean and fresh air.
"The important thing is not to foresee the future but to make it possible" - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
