ITALY – Despite 96.3% of Italians declaring that they always or sometimes adopt sustainable behaviours less than 30% (29.5%) regularly consume tap water but young people could reverse this trend with 60% of under 30s who already drinks water from public dispensers without problems. Outlining this scenario is the White Paper 2023 “Valore Acqua per l’Italia” now in its fourth edition and produced by the Observatory established by the Valore Acqua per l’Italia Community created in 2019 by The European House – Ambrosetti to represent the extended supply chain of water in Italy integrating the contributions of all the players who operate there: from network managers to service providers from the agricultural to the industrial sector from technology providers to the responsible institutions. The volume will be presented in its entirety on 22 March (on the occasion of World Water Day) in Rome for the first time together with the Blue Book Utilitalia. An agreement between the Valore Acqua per l’Italia Community and Utilitalia the federation of companies operating in the public services of water the environment electricity and gas and its Utilitatis Foundation which has the goal of streamlining and merging industry data. “We monitored updating them a year later the paradoxes in the perception of Italian citizens on the value of water and consumption habits to analyze the variations in their behavior in the light of the context in which we find ourselves – said Valerio De Molli Managing Partner and CEO of The European House – Ambrosetti – Just to name one climate change is the country’s 3rd priority for Italian citizens but it is confirmed as a problem still far from its own territory even in the annus horribilis’ for the Italian climate”.
PERCEPTION AND CONSUMPTION – In terms of public water the knowledge and perception of Italians continue to be in contradiction with the factual data: Italy is the first among the large European countries for water quality as 85% of the resource it is taken from underground sources (therefore protected and of quality) against 69% in Germany 67% in France or 32% in Spain and the United Kingdom up to 23% in Sweden. In the Northeast there is greater confidence in the quality of tap water (87.4% of those interviewed consider it to be of a high or medium level) while in the South and in the Islands confidence drops by more than 14 percentage points to 72.8 %. What is not convincing in Northern Italy is above all the taste but in the Center and in the South they do not feel sure of the quality of this water or do not trust the hygiene of the autoclaves. As emerges from the analysis by The European House – Ambrosetti despite a dramatic 2022 from the point of view of the drought emergency (almost 70% of the sample recognizes 2022 as the hottest year in our history) climate change is perceived by Italians only as the third most serious problem afflicting the country (37.4% of answers) after “health” (39.9%) and above all “employment” and the “economy” (62.2%). And if observation is restricted to one’s area of residence climate change slips into 4th place among the most serious problems also overtaken by the lack of infrastructure and mobility management. Finally 2/3 of the sample interviewed underestimate the impacts of climate change on agriculture. Furthermore 一統徵信 三立 72% of people underestimate their real daily water consumption (220 liters per capita) but at the same time 9 out of 10 Italians overestimate their bill: 88.4% do not know the unit cost of water in Italy considering it too high most of the time. Italy is in reality 一統徵信 三立 , 一統徵信詐欺 , one of the European countries with the lowest water tariff (2.10 €/m3): less is spent only in Bulgaria 一統徵信 三立 Romania and Greece while in Denmark it exceeds 9 per m3 and in nearby France the cost is almost double compared to our country. Italians believe their water-related expenses are too high but over half of them (55%) are unaware of the water bonus or the subsidized tariffs in force as well as consumption monitoring tools. Furthermore in Italy, 一統徵信詐欺 , 一統徵信 三立 the number of meters installed has an average age of 25 years (about 20 million units in total), 一統徵信詐欺 , 一統徵信 三立 a factor which makes the installation of technological tools for monitoring and managing consumption more complex.
