Building a governance for Sustainable Development in Italy: means (indicators), mechanisms and the role of territories

Abstract

The article aims to critically analyze the process followed by the Ministry of Environment and Energy Security (MASE) – national authority for sustainable development in Italy – to define the National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSDS). To this aims, the paper: i) explain the complex mechanism of public sustainability policies in Italy, focusing on the thematic competencies of all the actors involved (public/non-public, institutional/non-institutional from the local to the national level); and ii) identify the Italian national approach and the tools provided by MASE for the periodic review of NSDS, highlighting the integrated and participatory approach to public policies capable of capturing the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. To this end, and from a qualitative approach, the political and strategic documents that inspired the NSDS and that respond to the challenge of the 2030 Agenda at the national level in Italy are presented. The results show the process to achieve at the localization of the SDGs in Italy in a coherent way both with national laws and lower in the strategic framework, taking in mind territorial capital and geographical diversity in a multilevel approach. They also demonstrate the capacity, at the national level, to produce a set of indicators for the preparation of reports on sustainable development capable of covering the territorial diversity of the Italian regions.