Cotignola (RA), 11 October 2022 – There is an entrepreneurial sector that could not only strongly contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change on the country’s infrastructures, but also offer new employment opportunities, while safeguarding the integrity of the territory, which is increasingly compromised by the natural phenomena we now witness, often helplessly. This is the vast area of intervention related to forest and green maintenance, which could provide work for more than 120,000 people throughout the year, and not only on a seasonal basis.
A fact highlighted by Ecogest SpA, the leading company in Italy, and globally, for motorway green area maintenance services, the only European company present, in collaboration with Greenway Group, at the recent 4th International Conference on Sustainable Mobility
Organised by the International Road Federation (IRF) in Marrakech, Morocco.
An opportunity for the Italian society to present the study prepared by Dr Miriam Olmeda Alarcón on the impact of climate change on the situation
weather in the Mediterranean area. ‘The current climate situation and future predictions are increasingly worrying,’ Mrs Olmeda Alarcón emphasised, ‘and the transport sector is one of those most affected by its effects. The increase in global temperatures is evident and continues with a steady upward trend. Last August a temperature of about 1.21°C above the pre-industrial temperature was recorded. If the trend continues it could reach 1.5ºC, the limit set by the Paris Agreement, by about 2034’.
The warming of the surface of the Mediterranean Sea is leading to alterations in atmospheric processes, such as increased precipitation, more frequent extreme winds, and more tropical nights. These weather alterations are causing damage and increasingly jeopardising the maintenance of our roads, starting with the
vegetation management, both with regard to the maintenance of existing vegetation, with the appearance of new and invasive weed species, and with regard to the need for new planting, where favouring native and compatible species could make a difference to the future of the infrastructure itself.
In Marrakech Ecogest SpA, together with the creators of the Kassandra software, placed to the attention of the qualified audience of participants at the International Conference the importance, also through the use of predictive software, of adapting the maintenance, but also of new infrastructure construction, to the effects of change climate, thus creating resilient infrastructures. Of course, the problem does not only concern infrastructures and motorways, but the entire green management system in Italy As Valerio Molinari – the reference shareholder of Ecogest SpA – recalled, ‘We can say that the maintenance, first extraordinary and then ordinary, of our country’s state-owned forest areas can serenely generate between 100 and 120,000 jobs per year for seasonal periods that do not reduce to just 3 months, but most likely to at least 9 or 10 months per year; this type of work does not require who knows what professional training, which we can in any case imagine being made available to those concerned, but only a lot of planning and good will. We regret to point out that the NRP does not
provides, to date, no investment for the maintenance of Italy’s forests, while for the green works, children’s parks and sports fields, more than EUR 240 million have been earmarked. This is all right, shareable and necessary, but it should be remembered that in cases of extreme weather events, such as the recent floods, we realise how vital it is to provide for the careful maintenance of forests and, on the whole, the balance
hydrogeological interventions of the territory, which are often very deficient.”
Ecogest’s next event will be its participation on 24 and 25 October in the IBTTA (The International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association) Global Summit in Dublin.
Ufficio stampa: Paola Garifi, garifi@eprcomunicazione.it Mob. 328 9433375