Communicating sustainability: scenarios and new jobs

by Silvia Musso

Next February the Professional Master in Communication for Sustanability IED will start in Turin (Italy). It is an extension of the previous Master in Environmental Communication, arrived in 2009/10 at its 5th edition. The new Master, that takes place with the AICA patronage, is aimed to prepare specialized people able to make real the passage from the social responsibility to the aware environmental communication.

The course, 400 hours, will face different topics as sustainable production and consumption, alternative energy, recycling, resourses saveguarding, trying to deepen the theme of communication connected to environment.

The environmental issues are increasingly part of everyday life and represent a new way of thinking, a revolution not only technological but also cultural. The Master in Communication for Sustainability welcome this challenge by combining a deep theoretical knowledge with practical experience applied to strategies, languages and creative models, the result of interdisciplinary work and workshops.

The faculty is in fact composed of academics and professionals working in business realities or positions of responsibility in the public sector. At the theoretical level issues of communication, Green Marketing and Sustainability are studied and then the strategies and tools of sustainable communities are investigate. The course includes a workshop area of hours devoted to the analysis of case studies and meetings with professionals.

A first opportunity to discuss issues of sustainable development and environmental communication and presentation of the training will be the Master of the conference "Communicating sustainability. Scenarios and new jobs" to be held Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 18.00 at Eataly Torino - the 200-room, first floor.

Among the speakers taking part in the conference Oscar Farinetti of Eataly, a proponent of an innovative model of sustainability linked to the food industry and distribution and Luca Mercalli, meteorologist well known for his presence in the Italian show "Che tempo che fa". Roberto Cavallo, founder and president of ERICA (Educational Research Information Environmental Communication) and of AICA (International Association for Environmental Communication) will take part too as an expert in communication for sustainability. Other representative to support the communication of environmental issues and regulations will be Marco Moro, Editorial Director of Edizioni Ambiente. At the speakers' table will finally participate Erica Banchi, star of an Italian channel fiction called “Paura di Amare” and recently engaged in a docu-drama, aimed to the diffusion of environmental issues among the viewers, titled "The nuclear issue".

Moderator of the comparison will be the coordinator of the Professional Master in Communication for Sustainability of the European Institute of Design in Turin, Erik Balzaretti.