Culture as “the driving force for recovery and development. And, by promoting “ education and knowledge”, as a tool to make sustainable choices more effective, for the sake of a better future for the next generations. This is how, in the middle of the summer, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi opened the G20 Culture summit, held in the Colosseum amphitheatre in Rome, which provided an extraordinary backdrop for the discussion had by the Ministers of Culture of the biggest countries in the world. And the G20’s slogan, “People Planet Prosperity”, was interpreted to mean the value of beauty and environment, the rights against all forms of discrimination, and the beneficial relationships created between memory and future when safeguarding heritage and stimulating innovation. Indeed, prosperity in the post-Covid age.

The final document, unanimously approved, states that “cultural and creative sectors represent important economic drivers in their own right and are a significant source of jobs and income; and that they generate important spillovers to the wider economy, being drivers of innovation and sources of creative skills.” Recognising and enhancing their “social impact” in “supporting health and well-being, promoting social inclusion, gender equality and woman’s empowerment, local social capital, amplifying behavioural change and transformation towards more sustainable production and consumption practices” has therefore become key. Italy, according to Draghi and the Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini, is an exemplary “creative hub”. What we require now are “brave choices”, so that ideas can be put into practice, in order to conserve and develop “historical and cultural heritage” and turn it into a positive lever for economic and social growth. In fact, the guidance included in the Next Generation EU Recovery Plan runs along these same lines, and we are aligned with the political intentions of both the G20 and Europe in terms of public expenditure and the stimulation of private investments.

However, the talks of Draghi and Franceschini, as well as other contributions about culture we have heard and read about over the summer, draw the attention towards a particular point: the notion of a culture “for all” – accessible to all, understood by all. A real, genuine popular culture.

“Popular” as in open and communicative, far from being sloppy, vulgar or banal. “Popular” as in capable to blend “high” and “low”: symphonies and pop songs; great cinema – rife with narration and emotions (Billy Wilder, Sergio Leone…) – and the Italian comedy of Monicelli e Risi; highbrow literary prizes and readers’ awards – as with the Campiello literary prize –; sophisticated publishers and reckless writers; Picasso’s Dove of Peace and Banksy’s street art version of it; Quasimodo’s poem “Ed è subito sera” (“And suddenly it’s evening”) and Mina’s song “Città vuota” (“Empty city”); the performances and series broadcasted by Rai – true public service broadcasting from the 1950s and 1960s –; the interpretation of modernity according to sociologists and the philosophers adhering to Theodor W. Adorno’s Frankfurt School and Mariolino (Mario) Corso, Inter Milan’s left-footed footballer from the 1960s, commemorated in Il più mancino dei tiri (The greatest curve ball), a book by Edmondo Berselli, the extraordinary, sophisticated and ironic commentator of our troubled times (“Readers must sort themselves out, the public must gather information, make an effort, learn something…” he wrote in one of his best works, Venerati maestri (Venerable masters), to protest against the superficiality of slipshod opinions and the coarseness of commonplaces heightened by bad television and degraded social media).

Popular culture as in quality culture: incidentally, this is precisely one of the greatest legacies of the 20^th century, which becomes apparent when re-reading the works of Walter Benjamin and Elias Canetti, Isaiah Berlin and Antonio Gramsci, Karl Popper and Thomas Mann, George Orwell and Virginia Woolf, Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil, Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco (just to mention a few names). When, that is, we browse through the shelves of a large imaginary library, and apply good memory and abundant inquisitiveness in order to discover, rediscover and finally reach, as in Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Aleph”, an entire civilisation, the roots of learnings that are both embedded and yet in evolution.

Popular culture as in the culture of beauty and research, paying attention to that “do, and do well” related to the best corporate culture, of which Italy is an excellent example; the synthesis of humanistic and scientific learning, the intersection of words and numbers, until we reach music, too, and recall Gustav Mahler’s words: “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire” – an open door ushering in innovation.

Nowadays, the evolution of digital technologies and artificial intelligence poses new cultural and civic challenges, leads to fresh knowledge development paths that are, however, also in danger to be muddled by “public debate” and stripped (through fake news, the drifting of misconceptions towards “magic thinking” and authoritarian shortcuts) of the wealth of ideas and values we hold as individuals and as a society.

Our commitment lies in knowing how to experience the new dimensions of knowledge as if they were opportunities for “digital humanism”, to use a term cherished by Luciano Floridi, professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford. A term also used by Christian Greco, director of the Egyptian Museum of Turin, at the G20 Culture summit: “It’s time to introduce what can only be defined as digital humanism, in which archaeologists, anthropologists, architects, historians, philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists work side by side with chemists, physicists, computer specialists, in order to attain the definition of new semantics that will allow us to understand and process the complexity of our reality.”

This is the key for the acceleration of the increasingly “popular” dimension of museums (corporate museums included, as the Museimpresa association has long been saying), whereby they have become sites of knowledge and dissemination combining in-person visits with digital viewings, the online and the on-site, the emotions felt in front of a painting by Caravaggio or Pollock and the background knowledge gained through digital tools.

The meeting of heritage and innovation is always on the horizon, as Greco timely reminds us: “At an international level, it’s now commonly understood that museums are theatres of memories where local and global identities are defined and different visions of the past and present meet the future.”

And here’s another key term, when talking about popular culture: theatre. Or, “the place where a community could freely gather and express itself, the place where a community can listen to words and either accept or reject them.” This is the definition of theatre according to Paolo Grassi, who, in 1947, with a then young Giorgio Strehler, founded the Piccolo Teatro di Milano following the model of “an art theatre for everyone” (as Salvatore Carrubba, its current president, recently reminded us in Il Sole24Ore). Its founders included cultural figures but also entrepreneurs (in the foundation deed we find the names of Piero and Giovanni Pirelli, Ferdinando Borletti, Giovanni Falck). And it all happened against the background of a city eager to rebuild itself after the devastation wreaked by the war and the dark years of fascism – a city able to boost its culture and use it as a lever for development, in line with the civic sensitivity of an educated and productive middle class that was open to, and mindful of, social values.

The experience gained from endeavours such as the Piccolo Teatro, but also the Teatro Franco Parenti or other art venues in Milan precisely exemplifies how great popular culture can be generated: by blending a tendency for innovation and a commitment to dissemination, experimentation with performing arts’ new forms and languages and care for the development of a widespread culture.

These are themes that are actually being pursued right now, as part of the initiatives launched – and supervised by the Piccolo Teatro’s new director, Claudio Longhi – to commemorate the centenary of Strehler’s birth (the Pirelli Foundation will also take active part, through a series of performances and debates on the themes of work, social transformation, scientific research and the relationship between freedom and innovation). Themes that also rekindle the issue of culture experienced not much as a succession of “events” but rather as a process of growth – the growth of knowledge and awareness of a community’s social and civic values. And, above all, the comprehension of the crucial importance inherent in narrating those values in an open, widespread, engaged and, indeed, popular manner.

Federculture’s 17^th report takes a snapshot of a segment that expresses the best Italian qualities.

Enterprises as cultural tools, and culture as a context within which corporate roles and methods can help to better enhance territorial heritage – hence, cultural enterprises. As in the title of Federculture’s 17th annual report: Impresa cultura. Progettare e ripartire. (Cultural enterprises. Planning and restarting.) A collaborative work that, for many years now, has been discussing the issues that surround the diverse assortment of policies, consumption trends and cultural enterprises; a kind of compass to navigate amongst analyses, data and indicators; a snapshot that reveals hidden issues and open questions, but also the extraordinary potential of what, in Italy, is generally encapsulated in the term “culture”.

The 2021 edition of the Report, just like the 2020 edition, could not but focus its thoughts and analyses on the situation currently experienced by cultural institutions that are still grappling – just like other areas of Italy’s economic and social life – with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, though also casting a glance towards the future and the challenges that await them. The book, therefore, offers a broad overview that illustrates the new cultural, social and economic scenarios introduced by COVID-19 in this past year and, through essays and in-depth investigations, tackles aspects related to our present circumstances and issues that have fiercely arisen in recent times. To learn and analyse more thoroughly the state of the sector, Federculture has undertaken a field study and interviewed, by means of a survey, a wide array of cultural organisations and enterprises. The results are collected in the report and prompt valuable observations on how the sector reacted to the crisis, on its current situation, and on its expectations for the recovery.

What matters most, however, is reflecting on the strategies that will steer the new, challenging season of recovery that awaits the cultural sector – and the whole country.

One of the important messages readers can take away from this book is that, in the restarting phase that is approaching us, the ability to enhance and innovate both our cultural heritage and the whole economic structure related to creativity and beauty will be of the utmost importance.

“Impresa cultura”, then, is a good tool to better and more deeply understand one of the most significant aspects of Italian society and economy – its overall culture, which is the best expression of the Italian character.

Impresa cultura. Progettare e ripartire. (Cultural enterprise. Planning and restarting.) Federculture 2021 17^th annual report 

AA.VV., Federculture, Cangemi Editore, 2021

A contribution published in the magazine Percorsi di Secondo Welfare discusses the many connections between different locations of culture

Libraries as focal points within a knowledge network that becomes welfare, in the fullest meaning of the word. Essential elements in a “cultural well-being” system that is turning social, a web truly interconnected with other entities throughout the territory: social and economic institutions, enterprises and meeting places. A system within which the best corporate culture, not solely focused on economic profit, can find new expression and applications. These are some of the messages put forward in Il ruolo delle biblioteche nello sviluppo del welfare socio-culturale” (“The role of libraries in the development of social and cultural welfare”), contribution by Alessandro Agustoni and Marco Cau. Messages that revolve around the role that libraries, and the systems that link them up, could play as part of territories’ cultural and social policies.

The analysis undertaken by Agustoni and Cau, published in Percorsi di Secondo Welfare some time ago, examines the significance of libraries, starting from the experience gained through CUBI, the new interlibrary system. “Social and technological changes affect the identity of libraries, and are themes that should be discussed and reflected upon in terms of the operating models deployed on an international, and local, scale,” explain the two authors, before adding that “Cultural transformations, technological evolutions, social tensions can lead to a standstill, to throwing in the towel, to the closure of services – or, on the contrary, they can become drivers for change and innovation.” These are the transformations this research work analyses and that generate a number of considerations concerning the many roles that libraries could play, besides the ones associated with books and reading.” Amongst these roles, libraries could in fact be seen as “spaces in evolution, also in relation to work. On the one hand (…) they are places that can accommodate smart working, facilitate forms of agile working, contribute to a better life-work balance, providing accessible spaces and equipment suitable to agile working. On the other hand, the instances of corporate welfare in the public sphere are growing, generating models that can be assessed and employed as a source of information and potential applications.” Corporate welfare, then, that blends in with cultural and social welfare to create new forms of activities that can benefit society, as well as the general economy.

Agustoni and Cau’s work not only is clear and concise, but has the additional quality of bringing into focus what the concept of innovative and significant cultural territories should actually look like.

Il ruolo delle biblioteche nello sviluppo del welfare socio-culturale (“The role of libraries in the development of social and cultural welfare”)

Alessandro Agustoni, Marco Cau

Percorsi di Secondo Welfare, 2019

The countdown has begun to the award ceremony of the Premio Campiello 2021, which again this year is being supported by Pirelli. To find out more about the books featured in this 59th edition, the Pirelli Foundation, with Antonio Calabrò, has interviewed the five finalists.

The interviews, which will be published online on this site from today, will accompany all booklovers on the countdown to the final evening, which this year will be held for the first time at the Arsenale in Venice. The ceremony will take place on Saturday 4 September at 8.30 p.m. and will be broadcast worldwide by Rai Italia with an exceptional presenter, Andrea Delogu, an Italian radio and television presenter and writer.

This is the full programme of the interviews:

Monday 30 August 2021: Paolo Malaguti – Se l’acqua ride

Tuesday 31 August 2021: Giulia Caminito – L’acqua del lago non è mai dolce

Wednesday 1 September 2021: Paolo Nori – Sanguina ancora. L’incredibile vita di Fëdor M. Dostoevskij 

Thursday 2 September 2021: Andrea Bajani – Il libro delle case

Friday 3 September 2021: Carmen Pellegrino – La felicità degli altri

We will hear the writers telling us about adventures along the rivers of northern Italy, about mothers and daughters and the rage of a generation, about an encounter with a book that can change the course of a life, about homes that promise a happiness that is eternally elusive, about fragments of memory that attempt to recompose an existence.

Enjoy the show, and the read!

Pirelli Foundation

The Farnesina, the headquarters of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, is a suburban villa owned by the Farnese family from 1579 but originally built by the architect Baldassarre Peruzzi in the early sixteenth century on commission from Alessandro Chigi. The building is known for its stunning frescoes, which were commissioned by the wealthy Sienese banker from some of the greatest masters of the Italian Renaissance: Raphael, Sebastiano del Piombo, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as Sodoma, and Peruzzi himself.

Some fragments of the cornice of the Farnesina fell to the ground in late 1953, fortunately without harm to any passers-by or visitors. A number of cracks appeared in the walls of the villa and small pieces of the frescoes also became detached during those years. The blame was placed on the intense traffic along the streets at the sides of the building and in particular to the flow along the Lungotevere. As Pirelli magazine also pointed out in 1956, the task of ascertaining the real causes of these incidents was entrusted to the Società Applicazioni Gomma Antivibranti (S.A.G.A.), a subsidiary of Pirelli, and to the physics laboratories of the parent company, which offered their assistance as a way of thanking the Farnesina for hosting the International Rubber Conference. Tests to analyse the vibrations caused by the traffic were directed by the engineer Boschi di Stefano, the managing director of  S.A.G.A., and by the engineers Bassi and Prosdocimi. A picture from the time shows him in the gallery with Raphael’s Galatea while he runs and examines the data from the machines used for the surveys. The measurements led to the conclusion that the vibrations from the road on the Tiber side might seriously threaten the survival of the frescoes. It was therefore decided to intervene by building a “floating rubber road“, which was completed in the early 1970s. This involved suspending the Lungotevere road on more than 2,000 elastic anti-vibration blocks made using the most advanced Pirelli technology.

Advertisements, sketches, audio-visuals, and paste-up layouts are just some of the materials used for advertising Pirelli products that have now been published in the section of the website devoted to the Historical Archive, which is now being expanded with the series of medium- and large-format prints concerning car tyres. These also include the press proofs of the advertising campaign created by the graphic designer and architect Franco Grignani in 1955-6.

During this historic period, when motorisation was growing exponentially, Pirelli placed its bets not only on manufacturing increasingly specialised tyres but also on promoting them through the work of artists and intellectuals, creating a communication strategy that we would refer to today as cross-media. Newsprint, posters, cinema, direct advertising, and culture: the ‘Direzione Propaganda’ worked across the board to tell the story of the latest models of tyres launched on the market for all manner of vehicles, seasons and driving conditions. Ezio Bonini’s and Pavel Michael Engelmann’s graphics were thus accompanied by those of Franco Grignani, with a series of seven advertisements on the theme of long, tiring journeys made more comfortable and carefree by the use of Pirelli Stelvio tyres.

Playing on three key concepts (flexibility, durability and road-holding), Grignani gave the technique of collage a new, modern twist, conveying the idea of “something that recalls decals and restoration, and fragments of ancient painted walls”, as Leonardo Sinisgalli wrote in “Advertising in Italy” in 1956. Rotations, torsions, divisions and futuristic deformations move his images, creating new visual spaces and coming together in a different way of creating art, and in a different way of seeing and a different way of thinking. For Grignani, visual communication was not so much a matter of “showing” but of “seeing more”.

Grignani looks at art as a means for getting inside things, to understand them better: “My investigations have always involved looking at the inside of objects and understanding the reason why of things.” Just as Luigi Emanueli, a key figure in Pirelli’s Research and Development Department, considered scientific and technological research to be the means for entering into the merit of things and innovating: “Adess ghe capissaremm on quaicoss: andemm a guardagh denter” (“Now we’ll understand something, let’s go and look inside”) was his motto. Showing how, at Pirelli, art and science, culture and innovation all speak the same language.

An exhibition devoted to the trio of Italian genius opened on 16 June at the Villa Farnesina in Rome, as part of a series of events promoted by the Accademia dei Lincei to celebrate the anniversaries of Leonardo (2019), Raphael (2020) and Dante (2021). In a display of postcards, works, objects, magazines and newspapers from a hundred years ago, the exhibition explores the tastes and aesthetics of the celebrations of the anniversaries of Leonardo (1919), Raphael (1920) and Dante (1921). In the years immediately following the First World War, when Italy was attempting to rebuild its own national identity, the three great masters were hailed as a source of inspiration for young artists. They also became models for a new way of looking to the future, in a spirit of innovation and change, involving every sphere of human action and reaching out to the entire population through postcards, objects, furniture, architecture, and magazine and newspaper covers.

In particular, the first section of the exhibition looked at Leonardo, with references to the great inventions of which the genius from Vinci was considered to be a precursor – such as aircraft, which came to the fore in the Aeropainting of the 1920s – together with the equestrian monuments made by artists to illustrate scenes from the Great War, and anatomical studies. One of these works, a Pirelli advertisement featuring the great artist-inventor, is also on display.

Leonardo, the perfect embodiment of art and industry, thus became a sort of special endorser, chosen by Pirelli in 1920 to advertise its erasers: a portrait of him in sanguine, fastened to a support by drawing pins, shows him displaying “the best eraser for drawing”, as the slogan puts it. Just like a modern influencer, Leonardo da Vinci advises us to buy Pirelli erasers. As we can see in the catalogues of the time, now preserved at the Pirelli Foundation, these erasers were all marked with the Long P and a star, and were available in ten different shapes, as well as in the dual ink/pencil type.

The exhibition, entitled Il Trittico del Centenario: Leonardo 1919 Raffaello 1920 Dante 1921, curated by Roberto Antonelli, Virginia Lapenta and Guicciardo Sassoli de’Bianchi Strozzi, will run until 13 January 2022.

A book-interview by Miguel Benasayag suggests a way for readers to remain human in the presence of machines

Algorithms are driving everything, including our lives and all the social and economic systems that human beings can build. This modern edition of the man-machine challenge, the battle with the algorithms behind big data, is certainly the challenge of our time. It must be fully understood before it can be addressed, including in everyday life. It is therefore not just useful, but instructive and important, to read “The tyranny of algorithms”, the book-interview by Miguel Benasayag (the Argentine philosopher and psychoanalyst who taught us how to defend ourselves from the “sad passions” fuelled by our society). Written with Régis Meyran, it warns the reader about the risk of letting big data algorithms steer our democracies.

The book is just over 100 pages long and should be read with great care. The subject addressed is not so much the fact that all of us, and all our organisations, are impacted by the effects of algorithms on a daily basis, but rather an understanding of how we can exist as humans in such a world. This means ensuring that the special nature of living beings, their unpredictability and freedom, which cannot be reduced to a sum of information or the parameters of pure efficiency and performance, is not lost, despite the useful integration with artificial intelligence.

Benasayag’s reasoning applies on an individual level, as well as on a social and economic level. Benasayag makes it clear that even socially, politically and economically important decisions are now linked to the linear logic of machines. They are entrusted with calculations, the abnormal collection of data and the pseudo-rational management of a cause-and-effect relationship that does not take into account the complexity of individual and social “bodies” and that undermines our democracies.

Benasayag asks whether it is possible to take up the challenge of protecting the living, culture and good politics. The answer is not an infallible prescription, but a path of “creative re-appropriation” of the relationship with the artificial, a set of “singular solutions” of small dimensions and great human impact. In the here and now, they are able to build experiences and hybridisation practices with technology that respect the living and our freedoms.

“The Tyranny of Algorithms” is a must-read. The author does not always ask the reader to agree with everything they read, but to think about their own present in a different way.

The Tyranny of Algorithms

Miguel Benasayag

Vita e Pensiero, 2020

A survey of the world’s leading business schools shows the low level of training on SDG issues

Sustainable development is everyone’s goal. This is also true for companies, which have been adapting their methods and approaches to production and the market for some time. This change has also influenced the cultural backgrounds of the managers and entrepreneurs involved. Giselle Weybrecht set out to investigate how business schools around the world have involved their students in raising awareness about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed in 2015 to mid-2020. Weybrecht wanted to find out whether future managers have already mastered the principles of sustainable development that they will then be called upon to apply.

“How management education is engaging students in the sustainable development goals”, looks at the data from the information submitted by the schools. The author then goes on to outline the range of reported approaches that relate specifically to students and explicitly mention the SDGs.

The results are surprising. They show that although an increasing number of innovative approaches have been found that could become the basis for the way management education approaches the SDGs, most schools still do not engage their students in the SDGs themselves. This is not sufficient, because among the business schools that do address sustainable development issues, most offer limited coverage and they are always “embedded” in other subjects. Giselle Weybrecht writes,

“This is a missed opportunity for students, universities and the global community, given the important influence that management education, and by extension the business sector, has on achieving sustainable development goals”.

Giselle Weybrecht’s research demonstrates that there is still a long way to go to achieve a corporate culture with sustainable development as one of its main “strings”.

How management education is engaging students in the sustainable development goals

Giselle Weybrecht

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, July 2021

Devastating fires and disastrous floods after heavy rain and hailstorms. These events have become a dramatic feature of our times and will unfortunately become increasingly frequent in the future. Climate change and global warming are the main cause. Using the power of good journalism, “The Economist” addresses the issue in this week’s cover story, titled “No safe place”. It says that we are all at risk in the “3°C future” scenario, when the Earth will warm up to 3 degrees higher than in the pre-industrial era (we are getting ever closer: 2021 risks being the hottest year this century). The image of two penguins in the middle of the ocean, watching TV shows about burning forests and cities is poignant, not least because of its effective and very British irony.

The “extreme phenomena of floods” (the most recent in Germany and China) and fires (in Canada, Australia and now, here in Sardinia) will not disappear, but “economic and social adaptation could limit their impact”, writes the British weekly. It also suggests what can be done. Of course, we need to cut CO2 emissions, but above all we need to invest in changing production and consumption systems (transport, urban living conditions, renewable energy), making the Paris agreement on sustainability a reality and committing the richest countries to helping the poorest and most fragile countries in this area.

“The Economist” reflects on the intelligence of a couple of centuries of good practice, with few concessions to ideological extremism (it is also worth reading the issue’s editorial on neurological research and scientific ethics, arguing that liberal democracies must not give way to China on neuroscience). The Economist’s recommendations could be a good starting point in the preparation of the EU position for COP 26 (the UN Climate Change Conference, chaired by Italy and the UK) in Glasgow, Scotland, in November. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has already stated, “We want to reach an ambitious agreement, which includes both rich and emerging economies”.

The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement already called for the global average temperature increase to be kept well below 2°C, at 1.5°C in the long term. This was an important strategic choice. However, this was followed by uncertainties, shortcomings and outright disengagement, such as that of the US in the rocky season of the Trump presidency. Now the issue is back on the table in responsible political strategies, in part thanks to the radical change of direction of the Biden presidency, which is more aware of environmental issues.

In Brussels, the EU is moving with great determination. The Green Deal announced in recent weeks by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sets ambitious targets: a 100% reduction in CO2 emissions (“carbon neutrality”) by 2050, with an intermediate target of a 55% cut by 2030 (compared to 1990 levels); rewarding decarbonisation; introducing a tariff on non-EU goods produced under poor environmental standards (imports from China and India are particularly targeted); taxing fuels according to their energy content; planting 3 billion trees in EU countries to absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide; launching a €72 billion social fund to co-finance national incentives of the same amount for the green economy.

It’s a very ambitious plan, which addresses the demands of European public opinion on climate issues. In order to progress with the rapid implementation foreseen by EU officials, it still needs some ironing out.

Trying to convince the large manufacturing economies and energy producers (China, India and other industrial countries in the Far East, as well as the Arab countries and Brazil) to accelerate industrial change, reducing reliance on coal-fired plants and the massive use of other fossil fuels (oil, gas) is an international policy issue. This can be done with weapons of taxation (the “Cbam”, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, the so-called “carbon tax”, which has been applauded by leading economists such as Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008): “The US and EU effort risks being thwarted, the Earth is dying, punish the irresponsible”, “La Stampa”, 23 July 2021).

The transition needs to be designed so as not to bring European industry to its knees, starting with the automotive industry, which will be severely affected by a ban on non-electric car sales in 2035 (there are 300,000 direct jobs in the automotive sector in Italy), as well as the transport, cement, steel and aluminium industries.

“There is room for manoeuvre,” Brussels assures. The Recovery Plan includes measures to be taken for the energy transition that are closely linked to the digital transition. In short, we need to establish a new European industrial policy that rewards companies that have already invested in sustainability and encourages those that have not yet done so or have only done so partially. It is an important, urgent and necessary challenge, which involves the government, social partners, businesses and trade unions. It will require a great deal of cultural and political focus, careful and well-documented information and a general awareness of public opinion. The public needs to consider, understand and share its objectives (as the broader, most responsible part of the Italian population is doing to combat the pandemic, despite the fake news and propaganda from the anti-vax movement).  

“We need to move soon. The ecological transition is not a merry-go-round. It will be necessary to convert and change models and jobs. This requires painful but necessary choices. We need to manage the transition in an orderly manner, reducing risk profiles, increasing employment and stimulating entrepreneurship”, says Francesco Starace, CEO of Enel (“Il Sole24Ore”, 17 July).

There are some cutting-edge companies in Italy. 432 thousand industrial and service companies invested in green products and technologies between 2015 and 2019, according to a recent study by Symbola and Unioncamere. Now, “the Next Generation EU and the NRP are crucial for tackling the crisis and building a better future for Italy and Europe,” comments Ermete Realacci, President of the Symbola Foundation. The green transition is at the heart of this, together with social cohesion and digital innovation. In other words, a “safe place” is still possible, however difficult it may be.