Environment Minister Sergio Costa throws down the gauntlet to institutions: let's free ourselves from plastic. And he aims to raise the profile of his ministry.
Coming out of the corner and moving back to centre stage. Sergio Costa, the new Environment Minister, used a boxing metaphor to describe his determination to transform a ministry considered "minor" into one of the key nodes of government action. It is a far from easy objective to achieve, and on it will depend his ability to make an impact on the main open fronts – from Ilva to water treatment, through to land protection and the governance of parks – awaiting the senior officer of the State Forestry Corps.
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Costa was chosen by the parliamentary majority on the strength of his successes in the fight against eco-mafias, and he is firmly determined to export certain elements of the Campania model to the rest of Italy, while moving "from denouncing problems to finding solutions". This is because the environment "is economy, productive development, employment, and will be the driving force of government policies," and to win it the space it deserves, it is necessary to sustain a constant dialogue with movements, associations and ordinary citizens: "We are launching a process in which we share objectives and aims."
So, at a moment when the fight against plastic has become central to public debate and to the policies adopted in Brussels, why not start from the ministry itself? Institutions, after all, must set a good example, and so on 4 October (the feast day of Saint Francis, patron saint of Italy) the Environment Ministry will be "plastic free", free from plastic.
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The challenge has already been issued to the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Roberto Fico, and to the minister responsible for Economic Development and Labour, Luigi Di Maio: "You be the ones to spread the word, dear Roberto and dear Luigi, and in a friendly spirit challenge the other ministries to free yourselves and free us from plastic. Take on this commitment as I have taken it on, let's do it together and all get started as soon as possible." While the former accepted the challenge of ridding Montecitorio (the seat of the Chamber) of plastic too, Costa immediately extended the appeal "to other institutions, at whatever level of government — regions, metropolitan cities, municipalities," in short to all public bodies.
From now on, every campaign by the ministry will be marked by the hashtag #IoSonoAmbiente, precisely to invoke a sense of individual responsibility; everyone, in other words, is called upon to play their part, and one way to start is by tweeting one's commitment to giving up plastic "as a demonstration of participation," because "together we can all make it."
A decisive step-change is needed at multiple levels – from government down to individual citizens – to ensure that Italy fully seizes the social, environmental and economic growth opportunities linked to land safety, sea protection, virtuous waste management and the development of the circular economy.
Indeed, the requests put to the newly appointed minister by the 23 associations that promoted the 2018 environmental agenda point precisely in this direction: a document that – in 50 proposals divided into 18 thematic strands – maps out the road towards what Italy could look like in the future: creating a national plan for mobility, reducing land consumption, protecting biodiversity, and promoting CO2 reduction. These are, at bottom, many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030, which Italy signed up to in September 2015 alongside 192 other countries.
To achieve this, however, the environmental issue must be placed at the centre of government action. Will the executive led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte be the first in the history of the Republic to give a different weight to the ministry on Via Cristoforo Colombo? Costa is convinced it will: the first moves from Palazzo Chigi will already provide a clear answer.
