The environmental governance and a sustainable management of water
services account for fundamental aspects of an integrated policy for the
reduction of water pollution. The same Framework Directive 2000/60/EC
delineates the elements that characterize environmental governance as
fundamental factors for the success of its strategy. In particular, it calls for
appropriate mechanisms likely to guarantee information, and public opinion
consultation and participation as well as the involvement of users and of
institutional partnerships. As a result, the implementation of these principles
requires an integration of the present policies of regional development with the
priorities identified by the European Strategy of Sustainable Development
approved in Goteborg in 2001, and essentially confirmed in the more recent
Council of Brussels in 2003.
Relying on the premise that public policy plays a crucial role in promoting a
greater sense of social accountability for businesses and in setting up a context
meant to guarantee that the same businesses supplement their operations with
environmental and social concerns, this strategy has the objective of
improving communication between and mobilizing citizens and businesses.
What is more, in the Goteborg strategy the environmental governance has not
only to do with the problem of a greater participation of the socio-economic
stakeholders, but is also focused on the issue of transparency. and of data
access in setting up basic information systems. The lines of development of
water utilities do show, indeed, how complex these themes are and how
mature assessment methods have become in the process of reform of a sector
that contains in itself the three typical dimensions (economic, social and
environmental) of the processes of sustainable development. If we want to
guarantee transparency in this process, we must avail ourselves of a set of
appropriate indicators to evaluate, monitor, and control the state of
implementation of the reform of water utilities in the perspective of a
sustainable economic growth.
Access to environmental data is, in fact, of crucial importance in the
management of the LPUs, above all of water utilities for which new models of
public/private governance are envisaged in view of the close inter-relation and
interdependence of decisionmaking and information systems. It should be
noticed that in the revision of the Regional Action Plan a greater emphasis has
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