The following article appeared on the online magazine carta.org, and is archived here:

http://lists.peacelink.it/economia/msg02356.html

I found this article incredibly compelling as a small window into the real world web of sustainability initiatives, so I just translated it into english. SB is but a member of an immensely large global family, all pushing in the same direction. Here is a report on what some of our italian brethrens are up to.

Note:

The article makes repeated use of the word decrescita, for which I have found an english translation of "degrowth"[1]. Clearly, it is a neologism, which has yet to gain a foothold in the english language. In french it is translated as décroissance, and in german as Wachstumsrücknahme. The wikipedia entry has a link to an english language version, but it is incorrect in my opinion (I am going to fix it).

--fulvio 16:30, 21 Oct 2006 (PDT)

The frugal cities, examples of applied "de-growth"

by Marco Boschini

Coordinator of the Association of Virtuous Municipalities

Taking a tour far and wide through Italy one discovers projects and proposals that have a lot to do with de-growth, brought forward with courage and ingenuity by enlightened local administrators. Simple laborers of the common sense, extraordinary priests of good governance. Social operators, too, reckless politicians outside of the schemes, without volitions for easy careers within reach of compromise.

Amidst the indifference of the major networks of information-reality, every day they tear down bricks of that seemingly unsurmountable wall of consumption to the n-th degree and at any price. Environmental! They are young mayors, not necessarily by their birth certificate, but in their minds and hearts, simple city councilors with wacky proxies and alien words for traditional politics: participation, peace, cooperation.

They govern from the bottom up in small boondocks of the north and the south, or large urban conglomerates where the globalization of permanent waste has flooded streets, stairway landings, thoughts.

What to say for instance of the experience of Carugate, a town that, as the first in Italy, adopted a building code that is at the forefront in Europe: there, anyone wanting to construct a building or obtain a permit to restructure an existing one is obligated to obtain an environmental certification (which everyone will have to abide by starting in 2007), a small but effective norm that allows the buyer of a residence to know what, how much and how it will consume from an energetic point of view - to each class corresponds a degree of efficiency, just as for appliances. All of which is made possible by the insulation of rooms, the use of ecologic technologies (low-consumption lightbulbs, flux reductors, thermoreflectant panels, etc), the use of solar and photovoltaic panels, the recovery of rain water. All in all a fundamental proposal to rethink the management of a region according to criteria of sustainability.

And what about the municipality of Trezzano Rosa, which has regulated and reset to zero the waste on all light points of the town, without spending a single Euro for the required structural investments? Simply, the councilmember for the environment Luciano Burro introduced in Italy the ESCO system (Energy Service Company), which are companies that make energy savings their business, and which on behalf of local agencies, firms and individuals root out and resolve all the wastes, knocking down operating costs, while at the same time doing a favor to the environment and to public balance sheets.

Meanwhile, the municipality of Follonica intervened on garbage, rightly thinking about giving a new lease on life to things which, all too often, with great frivolity we turn from consumer goods into dumpster garbage! With the Ecomondo project, the garbage takes on a new life, thanks to a market which all citizens can participate in, with a simple magnetic card that records every transaction (rigorously money-free) in debits and credits. The reference point for the entire operation is the local ecologic station: a citizen can bestow items they no longer use (toys, bicycles, furniture, etc.), points are credited on the card, with which they can retrieve items of their liking left by others, in a game of exchange in which the beneficiary, once again, is the environment.

Then you discover that one of the most beautiful and common aspects of these incredible stories is that they are almost always zero-cost projects, or close to it. Their strength lies in the fantasy of those who propose them, in the capacity of involvement by the population, in the desire to put oneselves on the line for real. When I read the story of the Environmental High School of Laveno I said to myself: here is a simple and effective idea that costs nothing to get started, and which every italian school should take on and propose for the next school year. "The guardians of light", a project that pulled together teachers, students and parents for several weeks, and which facilitated the knockdown of electricity consumption by 55%. Without large investments of some generous foundation, simply introducing small daily attentions, talking and discussing among those who attend and live school every morning. Reading the meters, applying some "educational" stickers at lightswitch-height, turning off the lights during days of sun...

And what would happen tomorrow morning, at one of the european summits, or at the next G8 in Moscow, if our prime minister Romano Prodi announced the obligation for all italian municipalities to replace the incandescent lightbulbs of traffic lights with LED ones, which have an average life expectancy of one hundred thousand hours (vs. the two thousand of traditional ones) and an energy savings that hovers around 80% compared to the so-called normal ones?!? The municipality of Bressanone has already done that; in less than four years it comes ahead of the initial investment for the purchase of the LEDs and from then on it saves over ten thousand Euros per year on about ten traffic lights. At times I think about the traffic lights of Rome, or Milan, and wonder what the mayors of those metropoles might be waiting for to do stuff so easy it seems unreal.

The municipality of Rosà rightly thought to distribute eco-diapers to the new mothers of the town, convincing them to stop buying the disposable ones that pollute and cost a lot of money. If we keep in mind that every baby consumes 5000 on average during the first three years of their life, isn't it much more sensible and convenient to get equipped with a small supply of washable ones?

Still on the theme of garbage, there are tens of fantastic experiences, like that of the EcoFeste project, introduced since a few years ago by the province of Parma, and oriented toward all the summer festivals set up in the 47 municipalities of the provincial territory. Every festival is an occasion for encounters, an extraordinary cultural and recreational opportunity. But how much garbage do they leave behind, once the stage and kitchens are torn down? The province thought about giving a financial contribution to those entities (associations, cooperatives, foundations, etc.) which, while promoting an outdoors initiative, decide to reduce the weight of their ecological footprint, incentivizing the use of mater-bi (Biodegradable Cornstarch Based Plastic), promoting the differential garbage collection and the recovery of food leftovers, developing awareness campaigns oriented toward the participants of the various events and nights, all of which with low costs and enormous results!

Finally there are exemplary projects, which wrap up within themselves an immense force of attraction: I'm thinking of the "sustainable condominiums" of the Ferrara province, or of the "Cambieresti?" ("Would you change?") of Venice. Experiences on the field, made together with families, with the people. A concrete way to incentivize citizens toward the adoption of new lifestyles, based on sobriety and de-growth, capable of transforming the anti-waste awareness of the individual from feeling of inadequacy to an opportunity for committment.

For information, suggestions, support:

Associazione dei Comuni Virtuosi (www.comunivirtuosi.org)

Piazza Matteotti, 17 - 60030 Monsano (AN)

Tel. 0731/61931, 3384309269 - m.boschini@comune.colorno.pr.it