Constitution, the breakthrough that changed our future

My report concerns the present but above all the future. I’m not a jurist but there is an extraordinary event that needs to be underlined: for the first time this country has changed its constitutional principles. The Constitution has undergone various modifications over time, but the first part, the one concerning the principles, has never been modified until now.

During my speech I will try to have a trans-disciplinary approach. I start from a premise that PhD students know well, but I would say that everyone knows by now, either through direct experience, through reading, or through study. We are using an unsustainable socio-economic model not only on an environmental level but also on an economic, social and to some extent institutional level. Since the Second World War we have done great things, for example we have had a long period of peace, now put at great risk by the actions of the Russian Federation. We have had an extraordinary increase in population, income and everything that has allowed us, as people all over the world, to enjoy an absolutely exceptional development.

In the last seventy years we have applied the Western model to the entire planet, we have exported a development model based on production and consumption and on economic growth to the world. Over the years this has led to an unprecedented leap in the emissions of climate-changing gases, pollutants and various environmental problems. All aspects that make it impossible to continue on this path, and I believe that the new PhDs will carry this belief throughout our country and abroad. The economic, social, environmental and partly also institutional unsustainability, as previously mentioned, is now certified by science, by the various studies conducted around the world. Some time ago, together with some colleagues, we wrote an article that was published in the Guardian which represented the fruit of a seminar held in Pretoria, South Africa, which intended to continue a reflection begun in January 2013 thanks to an initiative of the King of Bhutan, known for his ideas on happiness: how to put it at the center of political actions? Together with some forty experts from all over the world, we reflected on these issues.

During the meeting in South Africa, at one point I said: let’s assume that there is a new country that really intends to implement the 2030 Agenda – the document had not yet been approved by the United Nations but its contents were already known – what should he do? How to imagine a sustainable future? In the article dethe Guardian we listed just these points. The first was the inclusion of the concept of sustainable development in the Constitution. Then let’s imagine that in this new country, which therefore had to draw the map of ministries by assigning various tasks to ministers, these had to be based on the achievement of the SDGs, so as to increase the coherence of policies. Subsequently, a system of statistical indicators was to be defined in line with the indices to measure the country’s progress. Something that, in reality, Italy already had, given that when I was at Istat we had developed the indicators of fair and sustainable well-being (Bes).

Streaming

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Another important, apparently technical, thing is to establish on which criterion the cost-benefit analysis must focus, which must be used to correctly evaluate how a given investment tends to maximize collective well-being. On this, the choice of the discount rate with which a future benefit is evaluated is fundamental, a rate that must not be affected by our short-term preferences, otherwise it risks being distorted. Always on Guardian, we wrote about how to define the rules for a company accounting capable of evaluating the overall impact of its actions on not only economic, but also social and environmental phenomena; how to develop new models of policy impact assessment, which must guide government decisions towards sustainable development; and how to commit the reform of the global economic and financial system in favor of sustainable development.

Seven points that, in the world, are somehow being realized. Let’s take Italy for example, in the first place, just last year, the principle of sustainable development was inserted into the Constitution. On the rules of business accounting, Europe is making great strides and the new directives will oblige many more companies from 2023, even those that are not very large, to describe the impact they are having on various issues related to sustainable development , such as for example the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced along the entire supply chain. Companies will therefore have to choose, for example, which means of transport to send goods to in order to pollute as little as possible. In this way, they will be oriented towards choosing rail rather than road transport.

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In essence, we have a sequence of events that can lead us to a more or less sustainable world, and it is evident that in the last 50 years we have made a series of choices that have not prevented us from being in the current conditions. Returning to the Constitution, to prepare for this speech I found an interesting quote from Gustavo Zagrebelsky: “Everyone wants to change the Constitution, but everyone has different ideas on how to change it. The constituent miracle of the past is difficult to renew today, when any change in the Constitution results for both in an advantage or a disadvantage that everyone is able to calculate”.

Alongside this quote I was reminded of Mark Twain, who said one day: “Obviously they didn’t know that doing that thing was impossible, so much so that we did it.” We of the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development (ASviS), in accordance with Mark Twain’s dictum, did not think that changing the Constitution was impossible. For this reason, with some constitutionalists, we began writing a proposal in 2016. There were two alternative solutions: a modification of article three, including among the tasks of the Republic the promotion of sustainable development also in the interest of future generations. Just what was missing from the Italian Constitution, the concept of justice between generations. And then there was the change that was supposed to affect article nine. These ideas, which weren’t new in the Italian cultural debate, were somehow taken up by politics, politics often criticized for thinking only of the short term. In the previous legislature, the Constitution was unanimously modified, also with the opposition forces.

The protection of the environment, biodiversity and ecosystems has therefore been added to article 9, also in the interest of future generations; the state law regulates the methods and forms of animal protection. Furthermore, to article 41, which speaks of private economic initiative, the fact is added that it cannot take place in conflict with social utility, in such a way as to cause damage to safety, freedom and human dignity; and that the law determines the appropriate programs and controls so that public and private economic activity can be directed and coordinated for social and environmental purposes.

It is a real revolution. It is no coincidence that with this modification, especially as regards the inclusion of the interest of future generations, our country has entered a small group of European countries, responding in an extraordinary way to Marx’s famous criticism of sustainable development. I’m not talking about Karl Marx but about Groucho Marx, the American actor of the 30s who said: “Why should I be interested in future generations? What have they done for me?”. Joke then taken up by Woody Allen.

But what are the implications of all this? They are numerous and will be the subject of an ASviS event on February 22nd. There is a point on which I dwell at this moment, which cannot be ignored. After the constitutional amendment, some strongly criticized this choice. Someone said that we have scarred the Constitution because we have put the environment on the same level as the protection of the landscape. Others, on the other hand, believe that a truly important leap has been made precisely because the legislator first, and then the Constitutional Court, will be called upon to find the balance between the interests of the current generation and that of future generations.

Not only on the environment but in general, because the principles then apply to some aspects and therefore you too will probably think of a few cases in which devastating pollution by companies has emerged, for example towards a territory. This type of behavior is no longer acceptable according to the new constitutional principles, and the same is true for public administrations. In Italy we have about 60,000 premature deaths a year due to air pollution, especially in some areas of the country, for example in the Po Valley. And, as has happened in other countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, it will now be possible to bring the pro-tempore government before the High Court and condemn it because the international commitments freely assumed by that country have not been respected.

We still have a long way to go, we need a new approach based on integrated thinking, which even new PhDs will have to bring. We no longer need to read the world through an excessive simplification, but we need to interpret it as a closed system, in which, for example, we exchange heat with the Universe. Let’s take natural capital, human capital, social capital and economic capital. We combine it in a production process to produce goods and services, the gross domestic product and a part we invest to reconstitute capital and a part we consume. This is the database of the economics textbooks that we use in the university, but we have forgotten the upper part of the system: while we produce and while we consume, we generate waste. Pope Francis remembers him in Praised Yes and not only that: we are not only talking about physical waste, but also human waste. The former impact the ecosystem services on which we depend. The same ecosystem services that are now protected by our Constitution.

Then there are other sectors on which development, peace and the vision of the future depend. And here comes Agenda 2030, the document underlying the commitments undertaken by 193 countries, including Italy, in 2015 with its 17 objectives and 169 targets, based precisely on that integrated thinking that PhDs in sustainable development and climate change have placed at the center of their study. And it is interesting to note that if we put those 17 Goals they can improve people’s well-being, nutrition, health, education. They also improve human capital.

And then in Agenda 20303 there is the innovation that generates, through investments, the change of our society. And then the circular economy. And then the renewable energy which is at the heart of the system. This is what science has produced. This is what politics has produced. Piero Calamandrei, one of the constituents of 1955, said that “Our Constitution is partly a reality and still partly a programme, an ideal, a hope, a commitment, and a work to be done”.

*The author is scientific director of ASviS