The green grows

To understand reality we must look at data, but sometimes this is not enough because we must also understand how these data are perceived by public opinion. These very “perceptions” require a long time to change. The increasingly evident opposition to environmental measures does not, for now, achieve the result of blocking them, although greater energy would be needed to promote them. Let us look at some examples.

The first concerns electric cars (Italian market share of 5.2%, while in France, Germany and the United Kingdom it reaches around 20%). In Italy there are 70,272 public charging points for electric vehicles in operation: they increased by 9,933 units in the last 12 months (March 2025). Most Italians, however, believe that there are only 2,500. On the motorway network there are finally 1,274 usable charging points, mostly fast-charging ones. It should be noted that these data precede the incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles.

A second difficult example concerns the circular use of materials: between 2004 and 2024 the rate of use rose from 5.8% to 20.8%. There have been good results in terms of economic savings. The share of companies introducing circular economy practices increased in just one year from 24% to 34% (energy, packaging, furniture, clothing…). Forty-three percent of companies have spent between €50,000 and €150,000 on dedicated initiatives, despite still complex regulations and insufficient incentives. That is not enough: medium-small and small companies need incentives and support in this direction.

A third example: recycling in the packaging sector in Italy stands at 75.6%. In this virtuous process, however, the environmental result must then translate into an industrial result: that is, the secondary raw material produced from separated waste must find a permanent and economically viable market, otherwise the mechanism stalls. That is not enough: competition must also be considered with virgin raw materials (for example plastic), whose price decreases (because environmental costs are not counted against it), and with secondary materials arriving from non-European countries that are inexpensive due to the low cost of local labour. The task of the government should be to introduce corrective measures, yet…

A fourth example concerns renewable energy. In the first six months of 2025, worldwide, wind and solar energy produced for the first time more energy than coal. Solar energy is inexpensive (its cost has fallen by 90% in fifteen years): silicon panels cost about as much as plywood boards. The maximum possible efficiency is around 20%, for some panels 25–28%, while new materials and experiments already underway may reach 50%. More specifically: by the end of 2024, active photovoltaic installations in our country exceeded 2 million, with an installed capacity of more than 40 GW (+6.8 GW, +30% in the last year alone). Ninety-three percent of installations are small-scale (equal to or less than 20 kW), representing 26% of total installed capacity. Photovoltaics account for more than one fifth of renewable energy (20.7%) and cover 7% of national energy demand. Renewable sources as a whole cover 51.2% of Italy’s electricity demand (generating 128,700 GWh). Greater awareness and the state incentives of the PNRR are driving the adoption of photovoltaics. That is not enough: it is absurd that about 60% of installations are located in the North (Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Piedmont), while only 17–20% are in the South, with the remainder in the Centre and the islands. To reach the target of 131 GW of renewable capacity installed in our country by 2030, in addition to the rapid growth of photovoltaics and wind power, we must focus on energy efficiency, storage systems (which are constantly expanding and decreasing in cost), and public-private partnerships.

All these examples show that it is possible to respond to the serious and worsening Italian short-sightedness of recent years and months regarding green policies, provided that we move beyond perceptions and combine actual data with the “that is not enough”, through objectives, interventions and concrete measures. There are increasingly many positions that incite hostility towards the proposals of the energy transition, which, if instead they were followed, would lead to the progressive energy independence of the country within a reasonable timeframe.

Carlo Degiacomi
NP December 2025