3 minutes read

The projects concerning the linkages between the 2030 Agenda and local policies contribute not only to disseminate the culture of sustainable development and to increase the awareness of institutions and civil society in terms of the challenges faced by the 2030 Agenda, but also and mainly to support decision-makers in the choice of selecting the most appropriate policies to adopt in each territory. Indeed, by providing quantitative tools such as the City Index and the Index for Provinces and Metropolitan Cities, FEEM’s effort is finalized at supporting with empirical and practical evidence public and private bodies towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Moreover, the project aims at increasing awareness concerning sustainable development through education and training cycles, meetings, confrontations, and lectures, both in classes and among local administrators.

The sub-program “Solutions and Tools for Sustainability” is implemented through three lines of research:

  • SDGs Portal for Italy: Starting from the results of the City Index, the project aims at updating the results of the report on cities (FEEM, 2018) and those of the updated version (FEEM, 2020) within an online platform (https://sdg-portal.it/en) – initially created for German local authorities – and thus facilitating the comparison with other European realities.
  • SDGs Portal for Morocco: The project aims at inserting the data for Moroccan cities (as previously occurred for Italian municipalities) within the online platform, thus facilitating the comparison with other European realities.
  • STEP – Sustainable Education Project: The research project aims at implementing the culture of sustainable development through research applied to a local high schools, in order to identify the most appropriate tools to promote sustainability within the Italian educational system. The research is based on qualitative and quantitative methodologies and it is characterized by a bottom-up approach engaging with both teachers and students.

Main results and outputs

The project aims to:

  • Elaborate tools to promote the 2030 Agenda at the local and national scale;
  • Support different actors in the definition of appropriate policies to be adopted in the respective territories;
  • Increase the awareness of communities in terms of sustainability, and support them in the creation of ideas and practical projects to solve the main global challenges following the indications of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

SDGs Portal for Italy: The data of the City Index (FEEM, 2018) and its updated version (FEEM, 2020) have flowed – and are updated yearly – into the German Platform of the Bertelsmann Foundation, the SDGs Portal. Through the digital version, it is not only possible to consider the results by city, Goal by Goal, but also to track practically the trend of the territories after years.

SDGs Portal for Morocco: The data for Moroccan cities will be inserted in the German online platform of the Bertelsmann Foundation, the SDGs Portal, as it has already occurred for Italian municipalities.

STEP-Sustainable Education Project: The main aim of the project is to promote a participatory path with teachers through focus groups and workshops in order to include education on sustainability issues in the curriculum of Secondary Schools. The research, including data collection, application of analysis and ex post validation will lead to a collaboration between research and school.