Sustainability Goals: Cittaslow anticipates the future

ORVIETO, Italy, Dec. 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --

Today we are all finally talking about 'sustainability' and 'resilience', reterritorialization and the urgency of a new global green deal.

It took decades since the Club of Rome commissioned the famous report on 'The Limits to Growth' from MIT, which made history: the calculations were imperfect, but the content of the message to all inhabitants of the earth was indisputable.

Of course, the 'night' of the pandemic is by no means over and the situation remains serious in many countries. But today, at the end of 2021, a message of commitment and hope arrives from the 300 Cittaslow communities in 30 countries, which despite everything makes us more optimistic about the destiny of the planet and of mankind. "We must be more and more proud of what we have built and are building all together in our cities and towns - declares the President of Cittaslow International, Mauro Migliorini, from his small and smart Italian city of Asolo -  in fact, for over 15 years our Cittaslow have concretely implemented good governance practices of cities and the territory that largely coincide with the UN SDGs." Indeed, if we look at the grid of the 72 science-based quality requirements that must be respected by the Cittaslow and the 17 SDGs, we can perfectly understand how prescient the mayors of small European cities had been when, starting in 1998, they began to propose a new model of governance and citizen self-government based on "slow" values. From actions to contrast segregation to inclusion policies, from lifelong citizenship education to urban planning and green infrastructures, from sustainable local development policies to Cittaslow Tourism, from the defense of craftsmanship to agrobiology and permaculture, from the active safeguard of bees to cycling and "soft" mobility, from energy efficiency in public and private buildings to public water policies, etc. "For this reason at Cittaslow headquarters - reiterates the Secretary General, Pier Giorgio Oliveti - at the end of this year we wanted to symbolically place one of the parameters for each of the 17 Sustainability Goals of the UN Agenda 2030 on our 'Christmas tree'. We can see that Cittaslow had anticipated the contemporary debate on social and environmental sustainability by more than 15 years, preparing in communities the present and the near future that inevitably see cities as allies of the environment."

The commitment of the mayors and citizens of Cittaslow is renewed for the coming year with new challenges and immense opportunities:  as planned by the Board of the Association during the year there will be the start of Cittaslow Academy training courses and the completion of the piloting of the 'Cittaslow Metropolis' project in two districts of Smyrna (Turkey) which will allow the Association born in small and medium-sized cities to offer the Cittaslow approach to neighborhoods of large cities. Among strategic tasks in 2022, a new subject of permanent partnership, Cittaslow Youth, will also be defined, to start a reciprocal exchange with the world of young citizens in the cities and beyond. "Not only 'for' young people, but 'with' and 'by' young people", announces the president. All young citizens aged 15 to 30 years residing in Cittaslow, will be called to participate in an international working group that will act as permanent "Cittaslow Youth" with the faculty of proposal and project management: info on cittaslow.org.

SOURCE Cittaslow International