Abstract

Acea Scuola is a project to empower children from elementary and secondary schools to create solutions for sustainable development. School year 2016-2017, 10 days dedicated to the “Water cycle”, 9 to the “Energy sector” and 2 to the “Waste Recovery”, 21 Training Days in total, with these numbers: about 6,000 students and 500 teachers.

Participants included some children with disabilities, 14 in wheelchairs.

Direct funding by Acea Group, rewarded the 12 winning School Institutes that sent sustainable projects as educational feedback with vouchers for a total of 50,000 euro.

The Experience

Acea Group has been subscribing to the UN Global Compact’s Ten Principles since 2007 renewing its support on an annual basis. The Acea path to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is also realized through its Sustainability Plan.

Among the17 SDGs, Acea has been working on Goal 4 - quality education.

Acea can contribute to SDGs particularly in low-income areas of Rome where the closure of the development gap requires considerable efforts, innovation and investments.

“Acea acts to promote education through the support to school curricula and policies to counteract gender discrimination and to encourage respect for the rights of all, for people with disabilities and women’s empowerment, improving access to sustainable technologies, and training for students and teachers”.

Acea wants to increase youth’s chances of finding future employment opportunities that favour the 17 SDGs. More specifically, Acea aims to drastically reduce the waste of natural resources and decrease the number of those youths unable to access to an environmental quality education. Such targets are addressed to sustainable development for the benefit of a resilient city. Furthermore, Acea aims to improve the standard of living in those communities and their inhabitants where it has been operating for over a hundred years.

We are living in a world where our next generation leaders need to be educated and trained for a dedicated workforce to a more sustainable future. In addition, it is especially worrying that a lot of youth in developing economies are currently without work, not studying or engaged in regular or informal employment, thereby fueling the social uncertainly and further affecting the likelihood of conflict and migration.

So Acea developed Acea Scuola in 2002, a long-term ongoing partnership with the local Authorities and the schools of the City of Rome and surrounding Metropolitan Areas of Rome.

Acea Scuola, from its inception to the present, has been attended by about 105,000 students and over 20,600 teachers. In particular for the 2014-15 school year, the initiative called Roma Città d’Acqua proved most successful and turned out to be the most sought after project by schools after the Memorial Day dedicated to the Jewish People who died during WW2.

The Rome City Council included it in the educational planning for the 2015-16 school year to which Acea recommended the theme called L’Ambiente che voglio da grande. The following participation results were achieved: 2,373 students and 233 teachers. Participants included children with disabilities. Water and Energy were the themes explained to children aged 6 – 13 of elementary and secondary schools. 

The water cycle and energy supply chain with the recovery of waste were the themes of the program for the school year 2016-17 entitled Io mi impegno per l’Ambiente! and the Listening Campaign ‘La scuola si apre al territorio’.

Acea also took care of any financial costs to students or schools.

Compared to the previous initiative of 2015-16, reservations by schools nearly quadrupled. Acea received requests to join from about 8,300 students and 650 teachers. Unfortunately, due to the high and unexpected demand, Acea could accept only 5,049 students and about 300 teachers. 7 days were dedicated to the “Water cycle”, 2 to the “Waste Recovery” and 9 to the “Energy sector”. It was under the patronage of Rome City Council and National Institute of Health.

Io mi impegno per l’ambiente! through the Listening Campaign ‘La scuola si apre al territorio’ was among the initiatives of the first Italian Sustainable Development Festival 2017 promoted by the Italian Association for Sustainable Development (ASVIS). 

La scuola si apre al territorio enabled all participating classes to stimulate their own sustainable creativity by offering social inclusion initiatives and small redevelopment interventions to be realized in their actual schools. It promoted evolutionary competence in support of sustainable development to enhance urban empowerment and resilience and to train new active citizens, future managers of public and private enterprises, and skilled and sustainable consumers. It was realized in an enterprise citizenship and stakeholder engagement logic, aimed at promoting shared management and enhancement of common assets and at increasing social capital.

Around 50 people were employed at different times for the internal management of the initiative. The project led Acea Group professionals to interact directly with all students on the concepts of sustainable development and their practical application.

Water Cycle: 2,150 Students, 219 Teachers, 7 Training Days, 21 Hours of Teaching. Energy Sector: 2,824 Students, 282 Teachers, 9 Training Days, 27 Hours of Teaching. Waste Recovery: 75 Students, 7 Teachers, 2 Training Days, 6 Hours of Teaching. Participants included children with disabilities: 14 in wheelchairs.
The initiative awarded a cash prize for a total of 50,000 euros for the 12 winning School Institutes for their project implementation. In order to ensure the widest spread of the benefits, only one class was awarded per Institute. All projects were evaluated by an Acea internal commission.

63 projects from 36 schools were presented, as following: 53 from the City of Rome; 10 from Metropolitan Areas of Rome.

Over 70% of the proposals submitted concerned the redevelopment of school spaces; 3 projects of the 12 winners dealt with social inclusion initiatives. Furthermore many projects were from the suburbs.

The short term objective is to include youths between 14 and 19 years old; the long term objective is to open the participation to university students so as to have it credited to their cv.

With reference to Goal 4 Acea aims to provide, free of charge, its expertise in the field of environmental protection for the largest possible number of students and teachers. Acea will accept requests for participation from schools of the City of Rome and surrounding Metropolitan Areas of Rome by respecting the order of arrival of all requests and within the limits of its ability to manage at least 6,000 people a year by the end of 2020 with no cost to students or schools. For the year 2030, on the condition that European Union funding is accessible to Acea, the objective is to accommodate many more requests for participation.

Acea Scuola identified children as critical agents for change and praised their infinite capacities for activism in the creation of a better world. It emphasizes that Acea is a resource that helps students understand that the science for sustainable development is completely accessible to them and therefore not a subject for ‘the elite’.

It continues in 2017 with Acea Camp a sporting event for children and Alice in the City a film festival for the younger generation. Referred to Acea Camp: 3 Training Days dedicated to the “Water cycle”, 951 students, about 7 Hours of Teaching.

Data research for all IAEG indicators: Acea, Istat Institute or other official statistic institutions. When data for IAEG indicators was not available, the closest national or sub-national indicators were used.

The following selected targets and indicators:
Target 4.3 - Indicator 4.3.1.
Target 4.5 – Indicator 4.5.1.
Target 4.7 – Indicator 4.7.1.

The progress made in implementing the Sustainability Plan of Acea and planned further measures are updated regularly.