ASSISI, CONCRETE SUSTAINABILITY, THE ECONOMY OF FRANCESCO
Antonio Brunori (PEFC, Italy): “Various activities to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide and neutralize the impact of the event.”
ASSISI – Reducing the environmental impact through activity to protect the secular holm oaks of the Eremo delle Carceri of Assisi, defense from forest fires on Mount Subasio, cleaning of the Collestrada forest, use of biodegradable materials, a push for differentiated waste collection, meals at km 0 and provision of public water fountains. These are, in principle, the actions implemented by the Committee of the Economy of Francesco, together with the municipal administration and the Region of Umbria, so that the great event of 22, 23 and 24 September, which also takes place in conjunction with the Season of Creation and which will see more than 1,000 young people from all over the world in Assisi, is truly sustainable. “We thought about the social and environmental impact that international events regularly have,” explains Lourdes Hercules, a young journalist and member of the organizing staff. “We want to reverse the course. Economic prophecy must also be ecological prophecy because the two dimensions are inseparable.”
As the organizing committee of Economy of Francesco recalls, “Economy and ecology both derive etymologically from the Greek oikos, meaning ‘house’ – a link that is so close that it forces us to take responsibility for our common home, not as masters, but as responsible custodians. The Committee has been intending to eliminate single-use plastic materials throughout the event. For this purpose, each participant will, in fact, receive a cotton backpack, containing a thermal bottle and foldable steel crockery, which can be reused after the event.”
Hercules adds: “We have also planned and implemented other actions for the custody of Creation, such as sustainable installations, the use of biodegradable and compostable materials. For catering, we will use raw materials and products of goods confiscated from organized crime and at a zero-kilometer distance. We have organized a push for differentiated waste collection, a diary and a sustainable kit. Finally, at the end of the event, an Impact Report will be produced that can provide a picture of what has been put in place and can be useful to other organizers of similar events. In this report, we will give an account of both the actions aimed at reducing emissions and the subsequent actions aimed at mitigating the effects of the emissions produced.”
“The organizing Committee has been engaged with the collaboration of the Region and the PEFC,” explains Antonio Brunori, General Secretary of the Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes Italy (PEFC), “to promote environmental sustainability activities. In particular, it was decided to improve the vitality and safety of the ancient holm oak forest of the Eremo delle Carceri and to carry out forest firefighting in the state-owned area around this World Heritage Site of Mount Subasio. This sustainable forest management activity will make it possible to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide in such quantities as to neutralize, at least in part, the impact of the event, calculated in tons of CO2 equivalent. A forest cleaning activity is then planned by a group of young participants in EoF who, together with us from PEFC, on Thursday morning, will travel to Collestrada for an educational and awareness-raising activity exactly in the place where it is said that St. Francis gave his cloak to a person in need, as depicted by Giotto”.
