An Observatory on Sustainability at the “Levi Cases” Study Center

Within the “Centro Studi di Economia e Tecnica dell’Energia Giorgio Levi Cases” of the University of Padua, the OSES, Observatory on Sustainability, Equality and Social Justice, has been established to promote research, training and consulting activities on the theme of economic, social and environmental sustainability.

The Observatory, presented on December 3, 2021 during the conference “Which sustainability? Policies, indicators, strategies and practices”, is coordinated by Ekaterina Domorenok and Paolo Graziano of the Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies.

In addition to conducting scientific investigations that privilege a critical and comparative approach, OSES proposes itself as a place of confrontation between researchers, policy makers, administrators and civil society, around the following three aspects:

• the link between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set at international level and localdevelopment policies, necessary to translate and monitor the Goals of the 2030 Agenda in measures and interventions to be implemented at different territorial levels;
• integration of policies, in order to achieve a balance of economic, social and environmental priorities that ensure complementarity and coherence among the measures adopted to meet the goals of sustainable development. The recent tensions that have emerged around policies for the ecological transition have highlighted, in fact, how essential it is to respect these balances in order to avoid the costs of ‘green’ policies falling on the less well-off population groups, causing growing inequalities and social conflicts;
• the link between policies and practices for sustainability through an awareness campaign that incentivizes the recipients of these policies (businesses, citizens, non-profits) to be proactive with respect to the changes promoted by governments.

This cross-cutting approach to the study of sustainable development practices is made possible thanks to the involvement of experts and researchers with political, economic, sociological, legal, and engineering skills that allow OSES to consider the many facets of sustainability in relation to different thematic areas, including energy transition, climate change, environmental protection, social inclusion and justice, green economy, sustainable production and consumption.