S-Tiles - bilancio ambientale

ENVIRONMENTAL BALANCE SHEET

In 2001 the Emilia Romagna region and the involved provincial administrations launched the Environmental Balance Sheet of the Ceramics District. Its objective is to provide a response to the various pressures - productive and residential - that interact with and have a significant impact on the natural resources and the quality of life in an area as vast and complex as that of Sassuolo-Scandiano.
The provinces of Modena and Reggio Emilia and the ten township districts decided to address the factors that impact on the environment and their consequences. On their behalf the Emilia Romagna REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, ARPA-Emilia Romagna (the Modena and Reggio Emilia sections in particular) produced the Environmental Balance Sheet of the Ceramics District, drawing an exhaustive and detailed picture of these environmental factors, quantified on the basis of many and varying contributions and participants, highlighting critical elements in relationship to the evolution of controlling phenomena.

The approach that the general investigation followed and the final results of the balance sheet offer strong testimony to a change in perspective with regard to the different environmental problematics. In fact, the problematics were not confronted sectorially, nor were they considered in a reductive manner based on their individual impacts. On the contrary, an attempt was made to integrate the territorial and production analyses to the greatest extent possible, keeping in mind the entire productive cycle: from raw materials to transport of goods, to their final emission, products included.

The relevant factors individualised are: electrical and water consumption, and acoustic, water, air, ground and electromagnetic pollution. The principle of shared responsibility is at the heart of the process of improving these critical situations. According to the results of the balance sheet, such an improvement is attainable through policies and actions applied to the entire district area, involving all the local actors and including natural resources and quality of life in addition to the industrial system. In bringing to fruition the Environmental Balance Sheet, an approach was thus elected that considers the Ceramics District almost as an ecosystem by itself, in which anthropic activities and the protection of natural resources must find their necessary equilibrium.