Teaming Up with the City of Milan on Climate Resilience

Studying, learning and giving contribution to your own city on social and environmental issues. If you are a student of the Bocconi Bachelor in International Politics and Government (BIG), you can do all this for the second-year course in management of government organizations taught by Amelia Compagni. "For the last couple of years we have been in close contact with the City of Milan, in particular with the City Resilience Department directed by Piero Pelizzaro", explains the academic, "in which our (82) students were divided into 14 teams who will have to draw up an action plan on either energy poverty or the environmental transition, putting to use their expertise but also a good measure of creativity».

In particular, what is expected from students is they develop a strategy to find economic resources and involve external actors. "Students will also be able to choose between two different paths: a more conservative one, which consists of taking their cue from the actions already implemented by the City Resilience Department", continues Compagni, "and a more creative one, which develops wholly new projects, perhaps taking inspiration from what has been done in other world cities and adapting it to the Milanese context." The initiative started in September and will end in November when the six teams selected by the Department will present their own plans in a face-to-face event, while the remaining teams will do it remotely via Virtual Poster with the collaboration of BUILT (Bocconi University Innovations in Learning and Teaching).

However there could be additional developments, as evidenced by Lavinia Kristin Svae, a student enrolled in the third year of the BIG who is now doing an internship at the same City Resilience Department. "I am very interested in sustainability and I wanted to understand how this issue can be dealt with in a practical way", she says. "In particular, I am interested in understanding what kinds of actions can be implemented in an urban area, such as Milan, that can have effects on a larger scale in terms of climate change». The internship, which began about a month ago, allows Lavinia to have a complete overview of sustainability issues in a city. "The work I do here is extremely varied; for example right now we are drafting the final review of the resilience strategy that will be presented soon, providing a balance sheet of what has been done and still needs to be done", continues the student. "Through collaborative projects like the one the City is doing with Bocconi, also we students can make a difference and give concrete help to plan for a better future".