The environment as a heritage

by Alessio Sciurpa

"To meet the challenges of the 21st century we need more transparent policies. To design these policies we need to better assess where we are now, where we want to go and how we can get there. To change the world we need to change the way that we understand the world and to do this we need to go beyond GDP".
Taking cue from the statement by Stavros Dimas, EU Commissioner for environment, in announcing that by 2010 the Commission will present a pilot version of an environmental index.

"The GDP – Dimas said - is not 'designed to be an instrument for measuring the welfare and as such does not take into account certain matters of vital importance for the quality' of our lives, such as a healthy environment, the social cohesion or the measure of happiness 'individual' ”. The question was on the board of economists and the subject of public discussion for some time, but the recent economic crisis and the trend towards a society with low environmental impact, have finally ferried the Commission towards this important decision.
Gross Domestic Product as a measure of wealth of a country is the sum of all production of goods and services of a community, without distinguishing the role that these goods and services have on real welfare. And then special allocation and natural disasters (such as in the recent case of Hurricane Katrina), arms production and sanitation, energy production from fossil and renewable, clean up polluted sites and waste collection are calculated on a single index.A similar conclusion has been received yet by another commission headed by Joseph Stiglitz in collaboration with Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, commissioned by Nicolas Sarkozy, and whose results will be presented today at the Elysee. In particular the committee focuses on the impact of the concept of sustainable development and its impact on the performance of a community. Given the definition that in 1987 he gave the Burtland report - Sustainable development is development that meets present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs - the Committee recommends to find the indicators that measure the human and physical capital, on the assumption that sustainable development is what makes this capital increase, and preserve it for future generations. It is in this context that the words of Dimas - To change the world, we must change the way that we understand it - acquire particular value. When you include an environmental index as a reference to the welfare of a community, not just ethically, but also on the economy, there are two concepts that change of meaning:

Environmental protection - no longer perceived only as something to defend tout court, but as a "heritage" to be preserved, measuring its impact on the life of a community.

Environmental damage - no longer perceived as a crime una tantum, but as a crime in progress, measuring the effects in the medium and long term.

In guiding the transition of meaning is evident the role that environmental communication, has played and can play, towards a new conception of environment as a common "heritage".
As a result of this revolution, the e. c. will play the role that it deserves increasingly professionalizing on communities, markets, and those structures of government, too often deficient in this area. The creation of a common lexicon, no more the exclusive preserve of special interest groups, but widespread.