REmini2020: the road to sustainable development is still uphill, according to Asvis spokesperson Enrico Giovannini. But Italians are attentive and engaged.
When it comes to sustainable development, there is one name in Italy that is a true authority: Enrico Giovannini, former Minister of Labour and Social Policies, professor at the University of Tor Vergata and spokesperson for Asvis, the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development. We met him at the Rimini trade fair, where we are covering the REmini2020 project by Fondazione Meeting and Conai, which over three years aims to make the Meeting for Friendship among Peoples sustainable. He confirmed to us that "to steer Italy, Europe and the world towards sustainable development, three elements are needed: a change in mindset, technology, governance. From this point of view, events like this one can help bring about that change in mindset."
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Finding ourselves in front of someone who has placed the concreteness of data at the centre of his professional career, we could not help but ask for some figures on our progress on the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals that, according to the United Nations, we should achieve by 2030. In July, Istat published a report on Italy's progress and, unfortunately, according to Giovannini, what emerges from it is far from positive: "Italy is not on a path of sustainability, neither economic, nor social, nor environmental." On the social and economic front, "the crisis has hit hard, poverty has increased, inequalities have widened, youth unemployment is high." On the environmental front, he continues, the surge in renewables is an excellent sign but still not enough, since "CO2 emissions have resumed at a faster rate than production is growing."
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And yet, also thanks to the work of Asvis, "the 2030 Agenda has entered schools, universities, and soon the training programmes for public managers as well." Those lagging behind, according to Giovannini, are rather politics and the media, which still seem to think in silos, "unable to grasp the unified vision and, in doing so, unable to convey it to the country." Moreover, "they often continue to focus on those few well-known figures such as GDP, overlooking many other data points that do exist" and that would be far better suited to reflecting the wellbeing of people and the territory.
LifeGate is on the road in Rimini to cover the REmini2020 project, a three-year initiative that gets under way with the 39th edition of the Meeting for Friendship among Peoples. The goal is to make this major event sustainable, working across several areas: the circular economy, energy, food, and mobility.
A few figures help convey the scale of the event. From 19 to 25 August, the 130,000 square metres set up at the Rimini trade fair come alive with conferences, workshops, round tables, exhibitions and shows, which also spill over into the city of Rimini and its surrounding area. Following 800,000 attendances in 2017, for 2018 530 speakers and 2,750 volunteers have already been involved.
Collaborating with the Foundation and drawing up the Meeting's sustainability strategy is Conai (Consorzio Nazionale Imballaggi). This is the first major test for its new challenge: tackling the issue of sustainability at large events with a 360-degree approach.