The opening event of the international conference included in the program of the Sustainable Development Festival (AsviS) was held in Palazzo Tursi, Genoa.

The conference, in whose scientific committee UniGe is represented by Mauro Spotorno, professor of Economic-Political Geography, was attended by scholars and specialists from various Italian universities and the Universities of Geneva, Nottingham and Perpignan.

Between the various speakers who brought their contributions during the first morning of work were the Rector of the University of Genoa Federico Delfino and the Rector of the University of Salento Fabio Pollice; with them the creator, project coordinator and president of the Association of Italian Geographers Elena dell'Agnese, Valentina Anzoise of the University Milano-Bicocca, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio of the Univerde Foundation, writer Mario Buticchi and AsviS scientific directorEnrico Giovannini.

"This project has an evocative title: 'Let's look from a green perspective,'" said Rector Federico Delfino. It is a theme that not only concerns rural and suburban contexts but also cities. The sustainability perspective also gives greater social inclusion and economic development potential. I believe that for universities and research institutions in-depth studies on how the landscape changes and the perception of the areas that connote sustainability are a duty, also in the role of supporting institutions in making choices. The atlas of Italian landscapes, the results of which are now being presented, is a way to promote our country."

The project "Greening the visual: an environmental atlas of Italian landscapes", funded under PRIN 2017, investigated the genesis and development of "environmental discourse" through visual media, both from a historical perspective and in contemporary visual practices.

Two hundred and fifty points are highlighted in the Green Atlas, the online atlas made from analog, audiovisual, digital, photographic and film materials. In addition to researching representations of the Italian landscape from a historical perspective, the project funded the creation of nine film-documentary productions of about forty minutes each (synthesis of more than sixty hours of footage), with geographers activated to collect data, insights, short narratives and interviews with more than two hundred people during twenty exploratory missions across the country. The work, in which twenty-five researchers participated, was created with the aim of investigating and analyzing the discourse on the environment conveyed by the representation of Italian landscapes in visual culture, both from a historical perspective and in contemporary visual practices. Launching it were the Universities of Milano-Bicocca, Milano Iulm and Roma Tor Vergata.