Tuscany Region

Our region has competence in fields of consumer education and information and has adopted a specific law about consumer protection since 1985 (regional law 2 may 1985 n.48, repealed by regional law 12 January 2000 n. 1 now in force). This law lists, among its purposes, safety and quality safeguard of products and services, with specific attention to sustainable development (paragraph 1 letter b). Moreover paragraph four letter n) of our regional Statute lists environmental sustainability among its fundamental purposes.

As to typical regional responsibility, Tuscany has been keen on implementing some measures for a sustainable development in full awareness of the principles and priority tasks both on European Community and International levels. Our region participated as partner in the project INTERREG IIIB "ENPLAN" and other projects like CLOSED, CONTARE, …TANDEM.

Our region is centring the sustainability-related actions mainly around three areas: the promotion of local Agendas 21 and sustainable "good practices", the improvement of the tools used to environmentally assess plans, programmes and projects, the promotion of the use of environmental management systems and of ethical and social certification tools (EMAS, ISO 14001, SA 8000) and greenlogos (ECOLABEL, etc).

In the field of sustainable consumption, our region carries out above all information and education activities, such as:

• the section "Notizie che fanno eco", in the internet site www.prontoconsumatore.it: this section, whose subtitle is "Pass the word for sustainable consumption", deals with news and considerations on several arguments, from the separate collection of rubbish to ethical finance. In 2005 the attention was focused on energy conservation and on alternative sources of energy.
  
  
• the section "Environment and Nature", in the internet site www.yesproject.it: the site was born with the financial support of UE-DG Health and Consumer Protection and its target are children from six to fourteen years. The purpose is to develop a critical conscience in matters of sustainable development and sustainable consumption.
  
  
• the activity of the assistance points on regional network Prontoconsumatore: our Region has recognised 85 assistance and information points on its whole territory. They are run by consumer organizations and they give citizens information about matters of sustainable consumption.