Varese Ligure, prima citta' d'Europa al 100% verde.
“Because the political will existed,
we succeeded in arresting Varese
Ligure’s decline.”
Maurizio Carranza, sindaco di Varese Ligure
Varese Ligure, provincia di La Spezia, e' uno dei picoli miracoli d'Europa.
Ha solo 2400 abitanti ed e' stata la prima citta' d'Europa - nel 2001, prima dei tedeschi, prima dei finladesi - a generare il 100% della sua elettricita' dalle energie rinnovabili.
Hanno usato vento, sole, energia idrolettrica e ci hanno messo una manciata di anni a trasformarsi in citta totalmente sostenibile. Genera tanta energia quanto tre volte il suo fabbisogno interno.
Dieci anni fa, Varese Ligure era in crisi, e la popolazione era in declino. Il sindaco Michaela Marone, ed il suo predecessore, Maurizio Caranza, pensarono a lungo su cosa fare per ridare vigore alla sua citta'.
E mica pensarono ad un pozzo di petrolio? A una raffineria? A un centro di stoccaggio?
No.
Pensarono alle energie rinnovabili, alla difesa dell'ambiente, alla rivitalizzazione del centro storico, al turismo. E cosi, si misero all'opera per trasformare radicalmente Varese Ligure. Grazie alla richiesta di manodopera, grazie alle opportunita' collegate al programma dei sindaci sostenibili, sono stati creati 140 posti di lavoro.
Varese Ligure e' la prima citta' italiana ad avere il certificato ISO 14001 (Ottobre 1999) e la prima citta' Europea EMAS (Novembre 1999).
Nel giro di dieci anni, il turismo e' aumentato di sei volte - la gente viene solo a vedere il sistema energetico della citta'!
Varese Ligure dalla sua ha una posizione geografica conveniente, i venti sono buoni e le sue 4 turbine a vento che producono 8 milioni di kilowatt-ore. A completare il quadro pannelli fotovoltaici che danno energia al comune e alla scuola.
Il loro prossimo obiettivo?
Agricoltura biologica: Varese ligure vuole diventare 100% organica nei prossimi anni.
Proprio come Viggiano, in Basilicata dove l'ENI ha annerito terreni, coscienze e sogni per il futuro.
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Dal Sito Clean Technica
A trip to Varese Ligure, Italy, will bring you face to face with a
charming town of pastel-colored houses and a plethora of restaurants
serving dishes with organic porcini mushrooms and chestnuts. Stop at the
bustling markets and you will see Italians who have traveled from far
and wide to purchase the locally produced organic meats, cheeses, and
honey. It’s a far cry from just 20 years ago, when this town in the
Liguria region of northwest Italy was fading away due to a lack of jobs,
no industry, decaying properties, and a lack of essential services.
At the end of the 1980s, Varese Ligure, a small town (pop: 2,400)
located in the Vara valley in the province of La Spezia, had gone from a
population of 6,000 to 2,250. However, the mayor at the time, Maurizio
Caranza, refused to give up hope for his dying town.
He decided to take
what others thought of as Varese Ligure’s weaknesses—geographical
isolation, lack of modern industry, antiquated farming practices—and
turn them into strengths.
He realized the valley’s clean air and
unspoiled land were assets and opportunities. What better way to
capitalize on those attributes than by becoming a sustainable tourist
destination through renewable energy and organic farming? “We realized
the only thing to do to prevent the village from dying was to protect
the environment and rehabilitate the agriculture sector,” Caranza told
Italian news agency
Adnkronos International.
The forward-thinking mayor hit on a gold mine. This was in the early
1990s, before climate change and mad cow disease became household words.
Little did he know that in the following decades the organic and
environmental movements would mushroom (pun intended).
Now,
20 years later, four
wind turbines produce 8 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year,
generating three times more electricity than the town uses. The town
hall and secondary school are covered with solar photovoltaic panels,
producing on site 98 percent and 62 percent of their electricity needs,
respectively. The wastewater treatment plant has a 4 kW PV system and
the town swimming pool is heated with solar panels. There is also a
small 8 kW hydroelectric system.
The electricity from the renewable energy systems is fed into the
local grid managed by ACAM, the electric utility company in La Spezia.
While ACAM manages and maintains the wind turbines, the ACAM utility and
the municipality jointly own them. ACAM pays Varese Ligure about
$30,000 each year for the excess electricity and also provides the town
with various services as part of its payment for the electricity, such
as sorted waste and landfill site management.
To rebuild the town, Caranza asked the residents if they would be
willing to repair and renovate their ancient stone houses—an image of
which sits juxtaposed against a modern wind turbine on the
municipality’s website—if the public administration got funding to redo
the roads, sewers, aqueducts, and street lighting. Though some people
were resistant at first, Caranza finally won them over, and home
renovations began. While some of the funding for renovations came from
the European Union, the majority of it came from the citizens
themselves. A psychological factor was at work, Caranza told travel
journalist
Giovanna Dunmall.
“If you go to someone’s house and it’s much nicer and cleaner than
yours, then when you go back to your home you realize that you want to
improve it, too.”
There was also a lot of education about organic farming practices,
and a push for farmers to stop using chemical fertilizers. Most farmers
actually couldn’t afford chemical fertilizers, so were farming
organically out of necessity already, but weren’t officially certified.
To get these conservative farmers to become organic certified, Caranza
explained that organic products could be sold at higher prices and
helped farmers get EU grants for organic farms. Now 108 organic farms
supply 98 percent of town’s produce, meat, and dairy products. The Vara
valley, now known as the “Organic Valley,” became Europe’s first valley
to be
certified ISO 14001, the international benchmark for environmental management.
One important program they started in the town in 1996 was the
Environmental Education Center (CEA),
which educates children of the region about organic agriculture,
renewable energy, and sustainability. The CEA takes schoolchildren on
tours of organic farms, dairy cooperatives, and bee keeping operations;
it offers educational courses on small wind turbines, solar panels, and
solar cookers; and it educates youth about energy consumption and
climate change.
Varese
Ligure is currently rated one of the best small towns in Italy by the
Touring Club Italiano, even receiving the organization’s
orange flag,
awarded to small towns for excellency in tourism, hospitality, and the
environment. There has been a 500-percent increase in tourists since the
late 1990s, an additional
$514,000 in annual tax revenues, 140 new jobs, and a stable population.
Caranza is proud of what has become of his town. “Tourism is an
important sector for six months a year, local farmers produce an
abundance of organic fruit and vegetables, meat and dairy products, and
the village now recycles 25 percent of its refuse,” he reported to
Adnkronos International.
“Because the political will existed, we succeeded in arresting Varese
Ligure’s decline.” And more than arresting decline, with a mixture of
clean energy and sustainable agriculture, they have truly transformed
the community.
