Are the territories ready to deal with a transition to an economy, which respects the biophysical limits of the planet and the failures of the globalized capitalist system?

This study concerns the possible implementation of “Economic Solidarity Districts” (Distretti di Economia Solidale, DES) in the Region Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) that is located in the North East of Italy.

The DES are geographical areas where practices of “Solidarity Economy” can start, through a conversion of productive activities and different relations between producers and consumers of the District.

There are some experiences of DES already started In Italy, which have been analyzed to find the main elements. Starting from these elements, a number of Indicators has been found, in order to characterize all municipalities of FVG.

The aggregation of these Indicators has allowed the creation of a synthetic index,. a “Composite Indicator”, which can find the suitability of a territory for the Solidarity Economy.

Technically a Composite Indicator is obtained after a process of selection, pre-treatment, normalization and aggregation of a set of elementary indicators that describe different dimensions related, in this context, to economic, environmental, and social aspects. The “Composite Indicator of suitability for the Solidarity Economy” has then been applied to assess how local areas could start, within them, some practices. The local areas analyzed are already present in the Region at the institutional level (as health districts).

The analysis shows that, within the Region, there are very different situations compared to a hypothetical "suitability" of the territories towards the Solidarity Economy

This media entry was a contribution to the special session „A proposal of complex index to measure the transition to Solidarity Economy.“ at the 5th International Degrowth Conference in Budapest in 2016.