For over thirty years, ACTA – Sensi Contemporanei has been developing projects that combine innovation, participation, and social impact, always starting from a guiding principle: public policies are both a compass and a lever for imagining pathways toward sustainable change. It is precisely from this perspective that Valdichiana4Green was born—a pilot project selected within FUTURAL – Empowering the FUTure through innovative Smart Solutions for rURAL areas, funded by the European Horizon Europe programme and involving 21 partners from across Europe. Valdichiana4Green was selected among the 10 innovative solutions to be implemented over the next 12 months and integrated into a European Meta Search Platform, which will be officially presented in Europe in March 2027.
European policies on the green transition, digital transformation, and youth engagement – aligned with the Next Generation EU framework – provided the starting point for identifying the Valdichiana Senese area as the ideal context for an experiment that brings together tourism, agri-food systems, technology, and participation.
The project also takes into account the objectives set within the EU Cohesion Policy. In particular, the intervention area coincides with that identified by the Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI) 2021–2027 for Valdichiana Senese, officially recognised by the regional law “Toscana Diffusa”. Valdichiana4Green is fully consistent with SNAI objectives and aims to foster integration between its actions and ongoing initiatives implemented with project partners, following a logic of complementarity and additionality among funding sources.
A European Project with Strong Local Roots
Valdichiana4Green was conceived as a concrete response to the development challenges faced by rural areas: enhancing tourism and agri-food value chains, promoting economic diversification, stimulating innovation among SMEs, supporting youth entrepreneurship, and strengthening sustainable planning capacities across public and private stakeholders.
The project is built on a solid network of partnerships. ACTA coordinates the entire process in collaboration with Ecotrans, an international network of sustainable tourism experts of which ACTA is a founding member, with the Union of Municipalities of Valdichiana Senese, and with the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Wine Route. Each partner plays a key role that is coherent with its territorial identity and expertise.
The European dimension of the project is ensured through the integration of the pilot action within the Destinet.eu network and through a well-established methodology based on the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum, which ACTA has adopted and adapted in dozens of projects at both national and international levels.
A Digital Ecosystem to “Go Green”
The technological core of the project is the Going Green Check, a sustainability assessment software for tourism businesses originally developed by Ecotrans within a pilot project funded by the German government. ACTA is currently working on adapting and making the tool replicable in different European contexts, starting with Valdichiana, where it will be customised and tested in close cooperation with local enterprises.
Through a collaborative digital platform, the project will provide:
- The Valdichiana Going Green Check, a self-assessment tool for tourism and agri-food businesses.
- LThe Going Green Map, an interactive map of sustainability-oriented stakeholders, integrated into Destinet.eu.
- Online training modules focused on sustainability.
- A community feedback system, co-designed during workshops, aimed at guiding future public policies and business models.
Participation, Capacity Building, and Development Models
The project is structured around three strategic pillars:
- Tourism value chain: supporting businesses in adopting sustainable, digital, and where possible certified practices, in order to operationalise less impactful initiatives.
- Integration of tourism and agri-food value chains: connecting agri-food production with the tourism offer and promoting local products to support business diversification and new entrepreneurial ideas, particularly among young people.
- Cooperation and governance: creating cross-sector business models co-designed with local stakeholders, fostering dialogue and decision-making processes that are more closely aligned with local contexts.
Over the next 12 months (from June 2025 to May 2026), the project will deliver co-design sessions, public events, workshops, and training activities. The overarching goal is to activate a local “green” ecosystem capable of generating value, attracting new tourist flows, facilitating knowledge exchange, and positioning Valdichiana as a European model for sustainable rural innovation.
Materials:
- On 3 June 2025, the international project pitch took place. The presentation slides are available for download at the following link.
This sub-project has received funding from the project FUTURAL (Grant Agreement number: 101083958) through its Open Call, funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme
