Verso la definizione e la condivisione di indicatori per la governance del territorio

Indicators are tools used in different fields and with distinct purposes in the integrated management of the territory; as a matter of fact, they are applied in the reports on environment state, in the environmental balances and in other forms of environmental reporting, in the management systems and in the environmental accounting, etc.. For the definition of the accounting system of a local authority, involved with the environmental variable, a step of physical statement of the territorial politics of the authority is necessary, through the analysis of environmental data and information carried out with the support of adequate indicators. The identification of such statement models must satisfy exigencies of efficacy, transparency and correlation with other politics, that often seem to be in conflict with the complexity of phenomena governing the territory, and the discretionary power and subjectivity of local stakeholders. Moving up from some experiences in literature, and taking into consideration how important such a tool is for the local governance as to communication aims and supporting of decisions, the definition of a set of shared indicators for sustainability represents a fundamental step, both to allow the comparison among several realities, and to facilitate the implementation of local sustainability politics. This paper intends to critically analyse the state of the art of some indicators taken into account, highlighting their positive aspects and limits.