Milan, 15 November 2024. With over 912.9 billion euros in turnover and 11.5 million employees in Europe, the Social Economy represents one of the most strategic sectors for sustainable European economic development, with an unexpressed and currently not fully exploited potential that the EU – with the Action Plan for the Social Economy – and the various institutional levels of the member states are trying to promote and support by activating concrete tools and actions. The goal is to create a new generation social economy that goes beyond the perimeter of the third sector and concerns the entire economic system. In Italy, the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) has started a working group that will deal with the National Plan for the Social Economy and some local and metropolitan authorities are implementing the European recommendations to support the sector also at a territorial level. The new Special Commission for the Civil Economy and the Third Sector of the Municipality of Milan begins this journey with a visit on November 15 to Fondazione Triulza in MIND, a gym of social innovation where, thanks to the presence and activities of Fondazione Triulza developed with its network of third sector entities, a Social Economy Cluster recognized by the EU was born.
In addition to the members of the Civil Economy Commission, members of the Economic Development and Labour Commission and of the Urban Economy, Urban Planning and Municipality 8 directorates also participated in the visit. The delegation attended the presentation of the social economy projects that Fondazione Triulza promotes through the Social Innovation Academy of MIND and visited the district, meeting some of the entities established there: Arexpo, Lendlease, Federated Innovation @MIND, Human Technopole, Valore Italia and the ITS CIMA Campus.
The aim of the Special Council Commission for Civil Economy and the Third Sector is to prepare a political path that will give more strength to the Social Economy in Milan, with the idea of organizing a public working meeting in May in MIND to compare and share experiences from other Italian and European cities and metropolitan areas.
“We have been pioneers in starting technology transfer and capacity building paths in MIND to give life to new models of social economy, able to work together with all the actors, public and private, that make up this innovation ecosystem strongly focused on internationalization and impact. A know-how of experiences, relationships and results that we want to make available to the Municipality to give life to a strategic plan for the Social Economy in Milan and its metropolitan area”, stated Massimo Minelli, President of Fondazione Triulza.
“With this inspection, the City Council, through the special commission for the civil economy, intends to express a strong position towards the world of the social economy, that is, the economy built by cooperatives and social enterprises. Since its inception, the special commission has worked to direct the mayor and council in this direction, developing very concrete motions, agendas and policy acts, including the decisive one on social public procurement. With MIND, we will work on an initiative that allows us to compare the work done by Milan with that of the most advanced cities in this direction”, declared Valerio Pedroni, President of the Special Commission for Civil Economy and Third Sector, Municipality of Milan
The socio-economic importance of the social economy in the European context and its contribution to the creation of a sustainable, innovative and resilient environment clearly emerges in the recent study “Benchmarking the socio-economic performance of the EU social economy” (link to the report), by the European Commission, coordinated by Euricse, in collaboration with Ciriec and Spatial foresight.
The EU social economy comprises over 4.3 million entities, including more than 246,000 social enterprises, generates €912.9 billion in turnover and employs at least 11.5 million people, or 6.3% of the employed population in the EU. Of these, over 3.3 million people are employed in sectors with a high social impact such as health, social care, education, art, culture and entertainment. In Italy, the sector includes over 406,000 entities that employ over 1.5 million workers, including more than 875,000 women, and involve more than 4.6 million volunteers.
