|
CLEAR: the first European
project for local
authorities on environmental
accounting
di
Ilaria Di Bella
What
is CLEAR
What
is new in CLEAR
Who
takes part in CLEAR
Where
does CLEAR lead
What
happens with CLEAR
Heading
towards sustainability
means bringing clearness
on how to manage the
environment and how
to promote involvement
and responsibility.
Now is the time to
set a “tool
box” for administrators
working on the territory.
At the local level,
not only in large
towns but in small
ones as well, environment
is a very concrete
problem involving
the control of pollution
and the quality of
the territory, protection
policies and strategic
opportunities, resources
availability and their
social distribution.
What are the environmental
effects of territorial
policies today? In
other words, how much
does the environment
cost, or better, how
much each single authority
is already spending
to handle these problems?
And how much it shall
or should spend in
the future? According
to estimations, at
a national level,
the cost of the environment
is somewhere around
2% of the GDP; at
a local level, this
cost varies between
18 and 22%. These
problems and costs
are still expressed
according to administrative
criteria only and
do not appear in the
public budget.
How to explain and
enhance this expenditure
to citizens and to
the government?
To head towards sustainability,
public administrators
need new and simple
tools that are adequate
to collect, record,
manage and communicate
costs and environmental
benefits for all their
actions on the territory.
These tools may give
birth to new projects,
important challenges
and new policies.
[top]
What
is CLEAR
CLEAR (City and
Local Environmental
Accounting and Reporting)
is the first Italian
project for environmental
accounting applied to
local authorities. It
foresees “environmental
budgeting” to
be drawn and approved
by 12 Municipalities
and 6 Provinces in Italy.
The project which was
born in October 2001
and shall be finished
in October 2003 was
approved and 50% co-financed
by the European Commission
as part of the LIFE-ENVIRONMENT
program. The total value
of CLEAR is 1.928.664
Euro.
In English, CLEAR means
limpid, transparent,
clean and “to
clear” means to
clarify. Clarify public
accounts, bring to light
the environmental costs
of development. Give
local administrators
the possibility to take
decisions, aware of
the effects and impacts
of policies on the environment.
CLEAR is testing the
first law proposal on
environmental accounting
for Municipalities,
Provinces, Regions and
Government, presented
in ’97 by senator
Fausto Giovanelli and
subscribed by all parliamentary
groups. The proposal
acknowledges all the
recommendations included
in the V Action Program
on Environment of the
European Union, stressing
the importance of environmental
accounting for a sustainable
development. The Italian
Senate is now studying
this law proposal.
[top]
What
is new in CLEAR
New
institutional process
CLEAR is an innovative
project because it inserts
the environmental accounting,
thus the organized and
systematic information
on the state of the
territory and of natural
resources, into the
institutional process
of democratic management.
This means that Municipalities
and Provinces which
are partners of CLEAR
shall not only draw
up environmental budgets
but shall examine, discuss
and approve them following
the same procedures
as for the financial
budget and balance sheet.
Administrators shall
thus assume the responsibility
towards their voters
not only for the economic
data on development
but for ecological data
as well.
New
decision-making process
Thanks to CLEAR,
the environmental accounting
leaves experts’
laboratories and goes
straight to the bodies.
To draw up the environmental
budgeting, local administrators
will be brought face-to-face
with territory stakeholders.
CLEAR foresees to achieve
a flexible model of
environmental budgeting,
so that each body, starting
from a common base,
may customise a “made-to-measure”
budget, depending on
its own specific management
requirements.
New
governance
The approval
of the financial budget
and the “green”
one during the same
session will allow useful
debates enabling to
identify and explain
the environmental effects
of economic and sectorial
policies.
This means that territory
management shall ground
on a natural (and transparent)
base of knowledge of
the environment resource
values, thus accounts
can be optimised making
policies more eco-efficient.
Designed this way, the
environmental accounting
may become one of the
most efficient instrument
in the “tool box”
for a renewed governance.
[top]
Who
takes part in CLEAR
CLEAR’s
prominent players are
18 Italian local authorities,
of small, medium and
large size, located
in the North, Centre
and South of Italy,
in very different territories.
The leader is the Municipality
of Ferrara. Municipalities
of Bergeggi, Castelnovo
ne’ Monti, Cavriago,
Grosseto, Modena, Pavia,
Ravenna, Reggio Emilia,
Rovigo, Salsomaggiore,
Varese Ligure as well
as Provinces of Bologna,
Ferrara, Reggio Emilia,
Modena, Naples and Turin
take part in it.
These 18 players are
a representative sample
also because of their
frequent municipality-province
partnership, which is
one of the variables
that the project shall
take into consideration
to set vertically-integrated
local territorial policies.
Local authorities taking
part in the CLEAR project,
are leaders in environmental
monitoring and in effectiveness
/ efficiency control
of these policies. In
fact, all of them have
already adopted at least
one environmental management
tool or environmental
accounting system to
help policy makers in
taking decisions. Besides
writing periodical Reports
on the State of Environment,
they have all adopted
the “Local Agenda
21” procedures
for a sustainable development
and are members of the
Italian “A21L”
Coordination.
The other partner of
the project is the Emilia
Romagna Region, which
coordinates the local
experiences on the territory
with a view to a possible
expansion of the “CLEAR
Method” to Regions.
[top]
Where
does CLEAR lead
The project is
born to improve local
governance on environment
and to provide administrators
with practical tools
to support their decision-making
process.
CLEAR has been divided
in three phases. During
the first (October 2001
- December 2001), the
project was launched
and started and the
methodology perfected.
The second phase (year
2002) is devoted to
the coordinated testing
and it foresees that
each partner will draft
its own environmental
budgeting. The structure
of the budget, the organisation
of data and the procedures
used are the same for
all partners, but each
document will be different
as it will acknowledge
the administrators’
and the community’s
requirements. During
discussion and monitoring
workshops, Municipalities
and Provinces study
and share the contents
and the method. Finally,
Town and Province Councils
will approve the environmental
budget as they do for
the financial budget
and for other planning
documents.
During the third phase
(January 2003 - October
2003), participants
will take stock of the
various experiences
and of collectively
acquired knowledge;
on these basis the “CLEAR
Method” will be
prompted, taking into
consideration the accounting
principles, the procedures
and the best practices.
The great number of
local authorities taking
part and their representativeness
ensure that the “CLEAR
Method” may be
easily reproduced and
extended to other Municipalities
and Provinces, and in
the future to Regions
as well.
[top]
What
happens with CLEAR
The
local environmental
budget
It is a document which
records all that happens
to the environment
of a certain Municipality
during one year. For
example: how much
waste has been produced,
how much water has
been consumed, how
much soil has remained
unbuilt, if and how
green has increased
or decreased, the
level of air pollution,
how much energy has
been produced and
consumed, how many
resources have been
used or made available.
The local environmental
budget does not include
only numeric data
(physical and/or financial)
but also information
on the environmental
results of policies
implemented or to
be implemented by
the public administration.
If for example, a
Municipality has decided
to grant new planning
permissions, the environmental
budget shall record
the expected ecological
impacts (increase
in the production
of waste, increase
in the energy produced
and consumed, state
of the green, parks
and gardens, condition
of the uncultivated
land etc.). If a Province
has decided to build
a cogeneration plant,
the environmental
budget shall record
the environmental
results related to
it (disposed waste,
produced energy, used
energy etc.).
With time, there shall
be a final environmental
balance sheet including
results of implemented
policies, and a budget
containing the information
and analysis about
future planning.
Data
and indicators
There are numerous
available data on
the condition of the
environment and on
the relationship between
economy and ecology,
which are collected
and processed according
to various models
and methods. CLEAR
proposes local administrators
to choose the most
significant and useful
ones according to
their specific requirements
and adopt them to
assess the liveability
of the urban environment.
To reach this target,
CLEAR grounds on a
series of statistic
tools internationally
validated and used,
such as: pressure
indicators (measuring
the pressure of human
activity on the environment
in terms of pollution
and the policies implemented);
sustainability indicators
of the European Commission;
the Ecological Footprint;
the SERIEE (Système
Européen de
Rassemblement de l’Information
Économique
sur l’Environnement,
a system of specific
satellite accounts
along the traditional
financial budgeting),
the EPEA (belonging
to the SERIEE and
used to assess the
effectiveness and
efficiency of the
expenditure to be
made to protect the
environment).
[top]
Referents
of the CLEAR-Life Project
Comune
di Ferrara
Laura
Bonati
Secretary - 0039 532
66547
l.bonati@comune.fe.it
Paola
Poggipollini
Responsible for administration
p.poggipollini@comune.fe.it
Leonardo
Malatesta
Responsible for the
CLEAR-Life project
l.malatesta@comune.fe.it
Coordination
staff
Alessandra
Vaccari
a.vaccari@scsconsulting.it
Ilaria Di Bella
ilaria.dibella@tin.it
Andrea Caldelli
a.caldelli@scsconsulting.it
Responsible
for diffusion
Roberto
Coizet
roberto.coizet@reteambiente.it
[top]
|
