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Overzicht van nucleaire activiteiten en hun milieuimpact in Vlaanderen

Questa nota descrive la situazione attuale della geotermia italiana, sia per quanto riguarda le innovazioni tecnologiche e le prospettive di sviluppo, sia in relazione all’impatto ambientale di tale industria.

The article is aimed at reading the 2022 Italian constitutional revision within the emerging “sustainability constitutionalismμ. Sustainability, according to empirical research, is mentioned in the text of 67 constitutions, very often in relation to the environment or the rights of future generations. As the vast majority of those references consists in very general substantive provisions, needing a legislative or judicial implementation, the article deals with the challenges brought by the “aspirational constitutionsμ and with the role of the courts in their enforcement. Finally, it maintains that, in order to achieve effectiveness, constitutions should include procedural provisions, aimed at integrating sustainability instances (throughout specialized bodies) into the legislative process

Nel Piano di azione per finanziare la crescita sostenibile della Commissione Europea, si affida alla finanza sostenibile la missione di consolidare la stabilità finanziaria attraverso l’integrazione dei fattori ambientali, sociali e di governance (ESG) nel processo decisionale relativo agli investimenti. In tale prospettiva si colloca l’intervento del legislatore europeo sugli obblighi informativi e sulle regole di comportamento che la disciplina di derivazione MiFID II pone a carico degli intermediari nella prestazione dei servizi di investimento, segnatamente di consulenza e gestione patrimoniale. Il presente saggio contiene un’analisi critica dei provvedimenti europei (di modifica e/o integrazione) che hanno un impatto diretto (Regolamenti della Commissione Europea contenuti nel Sustainable finance package del 21 aprile 2021) e indiretto (Sustainability- Related Disclosures in the financial sector Regulation e Taxonomy Regulation) su tale disciplina. L’analisi mette in luce che l’attribuzione a regole tradizionalmente usate per la protezione dell’investitore in strumenti finanziari del ruolo nuovo e aggiuntivo di componente determinante della policy europea sulla finanza sostenibile potrebbe mettere in pericolo la finalità originaria. L’adozione per gli strumenti finanziari sostenibili del modello di distribuzione orientato al prodotto potrebbe, infatti, minare l’obbligo degli intermediari finanziari di agire nel migliore interesse del cliente. In the European Commission’s Strategy for financing the Transition to a Sustainable Economy, sustainable finance is assigned a fundamental task: strengthening financial stability by incorporating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into the investment decision-making process. This perspective has led to a legislative intervention on MiFID II package-based disclosure and conduct of business regulation for advisers and portfolio managers. The present essay critically analyses the amendments involving the legal framework concerned, directly through the delegated acts included in the Sustainable finance package, 21 April 2021, and indirectly through Sustainability - Related Disclosures in the financial sector Regulation and Taxonomy Regulation. The analysis argues that the EU policy on sustainable finance could jeopardise the rationale for conduct of business rules traditionally provided for protecting financial investors. In fact, the adoption of a product-oriented model for sustainable financial instruments might undermine the financial intermediary’s duty to act in the best interest of the client.

The essay analyzes how the introduction of ESG factors can change bank gov- ernment. This process can be caused by market choices, or by the choices of the legislator. Important in this respect is the work of the European Commission on sus- tainability and the idea that banking intermediation should finance the transition to a sustainable economy. The consequences for European regulator mainly concern the management of ESG risks. These steps should find a first regulation after the ap- proval of the «Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Coun- cil Amending Directive 2013/36/EU as regards supervisory powers, sanctions, third- country branches, and environmental, social and governance, risks and amending Di- rective 2014/59/EU COM/2021/663 final».

The magmatic processes that affected the Tyrrhenian sector of the Italian peninsula in the Pliocene and Quaternary are responsible for the conspicuous thermal anomaly, highlighted by the high surface heat flux and by the rapid increase in temperature with depth. Furthermore, the local geology has often allowed the formation and persistence of important hydrothermal geothermal systems, potentially exploitable for the production of electricity or for direct heating. This paper deals with the situation in the Viterbo area, where the geothermal systems of Latera and Torre Alfina werem discovered decades ago. The analysis of the rich documentation contained in the inventory of Italian geothermal resources has made it possible to evaluate the geothermal potential of each municipality in the Viterbo province (Provincia di Viterbo), in order to plan further research aimed at identifying and exploiting geothermal reservoirs, in compliance with the environmental protection and resource sustainability.

This dataset and codebook correspond to the initial round of survey data gathered in Italy in 2022, within the project FULFILL - Fundamental Decarbonisation Through Sufficiency By Lifestyle Changes. As part of Work Package 3 (WP3) in the FULFILL project, we collected quantitative data from six countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, and India. In the first round of the survey, we recruited a representative sample of approximately 2000 households in each country, taking into account both the individual and household perspectives. The survey includes a quantitative assessment of the carbon footprint in various domains of life, such as housing, mobility, and diet. In addition to this, the survey also measures socio-economic factors such as age, gender, income, education, household size, life stage, and political orientation. Furthermore, the survey includes measures of quality of life, encompassing aspects such as health and well-being, environmental quality, financial security, and comfort.

This dataset and codebook correspond to the second round of survey data gathered in Italy in 2023, within the project FULFILL - Fundamental Decarbonisation Through Sufficiency By Lifestyle Changes. As part of Work Package 3 (WP3) in the FULFILL project, we collected quantitative data from six countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, and India. The first round of the survey, consisted of recruiting a representative sample of approximately 2000 households in each country. In this second survey round, we recruit around 500 respondents from the initial survey round, ensuring representativity is maintained. This survey is very similar to the survey in the first round and includes a lot of identical items, including a quantitative assessment of the carbon footprint in the housing, mobility, and diet sectors, socio-economic factors such as age, gender, income, education, household size, life stage, and political orientation. Furthermore, the survey includes measures of quality of life, encompassing aspects such as health and well-being, environmental quality, financial security, and comfort. New for this second round, we have incorporated questions regarding the measures respondents adopted in response to the 2022 energy crisis.

This brief contribution aims to apply sociological imagination to the issues that emerged with the Covid- 19 crisis and suggests some possible topics and methodologies of research. In the first section I describe three relevant themes, among the many possible ones: 1) the new role of personal data (especially those related to our health); 2) the "mediatisation" of distance; 3) the environmental impact of digital media. In the second section, I conclude with a note on how to set the sociological imagination in motion. Among the possible methods, I suggest the rediscovery/adoption of ethnographic methods, and among them, in particular, auto-ethnography. I maintain that it might be useful to study with an ethnographic approach the sociality produced during these days of confinement, instead of using the usual online questionnaires, which often represent a lazy way, for the researcher, to delegate the work of data production to others. Instead, it would be more interesting to return to participant observation and study media as a practice (Couldry 2004). In the conclusions I briefly sketch how it could still be possible to do ethnography in the field in the age of physical distancing and new possible lockdowns.