Padova is among the most ancient cities in the northern Italy. It counts 209.420 inhabitants on an area of 92,85 kmq. Its strategic location, alongside river Brenta, has always been a melting pot of people and cultures, enriching and placing the city as one of the most active economic and cultural exchange centres in the North-Eastern area of Italy and Veneto Region. The inclusion of Padova Giotto’s frescos in the UNESCO World Heritage, together with Padova election as European Volunteering Capital, but also Capital of Green Innovation, is placing the city under constant international visibility.
Padova is already set to become a metropolitan hub by 2030, where the crucial assets to prioritize are innovation, interconnection, sustainability and social inclusion. Padova Municipality is currently operating in several macro sectors for a more sustainable growth of the city that pays attention to resources, social well-being and economy, namely i) mobility and micro mobility, ii) healthcare, iii) well-being, iv) urban culture and renovation, v) parks and recreation, vi) security and cybersecurity. The reported pillars are interconnected and each of them takes advantage of a particular sector of the Padova’s community and its innovation network, in a concerted effort of local stakeholders from private and public sector and the associations. These macro areas are all in line with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 Agenda, where every action proposed by the Municipality combines local needs and global sustainable requirements.
Padova is one of 100 European pilot cities selected by the European Commission in the NetZeroCities project, with the ambitious mission of achieving climate neutrality by 2030.
Therefore, the Municipality's primary goal is to drastically reduce its CO2 emissions by implementing and enhancing the actions included in its SECAP.
In particular, the Municipality intends to profoundly renew the public and private building real estate property, enhance the use of energy from renewable sources, strengthen electric public transport service and soft mobility, reduce waste production also through circular economy strategies, implement a food policy and implement climate change adaptation policies, especially related to urban green.
Regarding the actions in terms of adaptation policies, the Municipality intends to define an Agro-landscape Plan for the ecological transition of peri-urban agriculture, in continuity with the strategies of its Green Plan approved in 2022.
Padova recognizes the role of urban and peri-urban agriculture as central in the sustainable development of the territory, both from an urban-environmental and from a socio-economic point of view. For this reason, the Municipality intends to initiate a participatory process leading to the drafting of an Agro-landscape Plan capable of concretely applying strategic actions already identified. Such a Plan will serve to promote the transition to a multifunctional, inclusive, sustainable and innovative metropolitan agriculture.
The initiative aims at boosting peri-urban territories by placing agriculture, as a nature-based solution, at the center of an urban vision.
Urban agriculture, in synergy with local food policy, plays a key role in achieving climate neutrality, promotes sustainable land use and the creation of new green jobs.
In addition, within the Agro-landscape Plan, the cultural heritage of the agrarian landscape of the Venetian plain will be enhanced through encouraging the recovery of the agrarian hydraulic systems that shaped a complex landscape, the latter of which has been gradually simplified due to intensive agriculture and urbanization of farmland.
Finally, the Plan is also presented as an innovative initiative because of its vision related to the social world. In fact, the enhancement of peri-urban agriculture in Padova cannot disregard the strengthening of social farms as well as the network of enterprises operating in the context of social and solidarity economy. For this reason, the initiative aims to encourage the establishment of these solutions and the launch of community-supported agriculture projects.
Therefore, the Municipality of Padova is interested in joining any consortium that can help develop the project described above.
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For info, please refer to:
Davide Primucci