The sustainable Festival

The promotion of a “sustainable development” requires the re-establishment or the creation of right conditions to let cities be, compatibly with their needs of development, more liveable, pleasant, beautiful and human for everyone.

When we talk about sustainability we make reference to the use of common resources and to the “inter generational equity”, i.e. the attempt to avoid transfer of costs for the environmental development (the impoverishment of the resources, the deterioration of the environment, heavy damage to the ecosystem, etc.) from the actual generations to the future ones.

The rhythm of our contemporary living turns the venues of our cities into passing places. So they are becoming unused backgrounds of faster and faster transfers, and therefore the meeting places are losing their significance and importance. The street is no more a centre of exchanges, meeting and animation in the city, but it has become a space where even personal safety can be compromised. As a consequence, on the one hand there’s a minor attention devoted to the public space, which leads to urban decay, on the second hand we lose one of the components of quality in our life, such as chance of comparison, collective growth and social integration.

The city of Verona is committing itself to offer its citizens, young people, children, old people and disabled, a better quality of urban life, more oriented to the principles of sustainability in line with the "Aalborg Commitments" (10 commitments which deal with various development sectors) undersigned together with other European Cities. The starting up of “Agenda 21 Locale” route, that is, the definition of the local action Plan, points to achieve the goal of “creating a system” together with the involved actors and with the participation of the citizens in order to adopt those “Good Customs” which work together to improve the quality of urban life. ù

The experience of Tocatì Festival offers to the city the opportunity of experimenting all that, with the reevaluation of spaces used in a non-common way, by promoting the exchange and the relationship among people. Therefore, we wanted to make this initiative as sustainable as possible, by trying to reduce the waste of common resources. Many actors take part in this effort, each one according to his or her competences, and contribute towards the carry out of this event.

This year we will try to reduce the environmental impact due to traffic to reach the city: in this sense, the displacements by train and bicycle will be favoured thanks to special discounts in accordance with Trenitalia.

A sustainable mobility is also granted by the Environment Area of Verona Municipality that will place some bicycles at disposal for the organizers’ displacements, thanks to the contribution of “La Scaligera” Association.
Moreover, the extremely successful experience of boats on Adige river, with the settlement of two little ports close to the historical centre, will be repeated.
Only recyclable plates will be used and A.M.I.A. will grant its support for the differentiated collection.

If only for a short time in the historical city centre, during the Tocatì days you will have the chance to experience a new form of urban living: using everyday places and spaces with different functions and making people enjoy more suitable rhythms which permit to experience new meetings and relationships with the others.

Step by step, all together we can work in order to make this experience of sustainable development promotion an usual praxis. Through the renovation of our values and our behaviours and even through simple good customs we will be able to produce remarkable changes in the quality of life in our cities an in the entire planet.