Environment and Sustainability in the Italian Political Cultures in the 1970s

The article analyses how the main Italian political cultures perceived and reacted to the emergence of the environmental issue in the early 1970s and how they par-ticipated in the nascent international debate on sustainability. The article also in-vestigates how the main Italian parties imagined the future society as regards the problems of the environment and development. By examining the debates and initiatives that took place in parliamentary halls, in party offices and in the press in relation to some key national events (such as the publication of Project 80, the es-tablishment of the Parliamentary Committee for ecological problems and the first national conference on the environment) and international events (in particular, the publication of the Mit Report The Limits to Growth and the UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972), the article shows that, alt-hough in the early 1970s environment had entered the agenda of the Italian par-ties and a reflection – albeit thin – on «sustainability» had been initiated, the de-bate on these issues had a slow, bumpy and ineffective follow-up at least until the second half of the decade.

Keywords: Environment, sustainable development, ecology, Stockholm conference on hu-man environment, Christian Democracy, Italian Communist Party

Chiara Zampieri, Ambiente e sostenibilità nelle culture politiche italiane degli anni Settanta in "MONDO CONTEMPORANEO" 2-3/2022, pp 215-239, DOI: 10.3280/MON2022-002010