Green economy, a national table for the sustainable infrastructure standard

The aim is to make infrastructure investments stable, credible and attractive for international sustainable finance. Against this backdrop, the announcement is made by the 'Sustainable Infrastructure Association' (Ais), the national table for the definition of a model for sustainable infrastructure and finance, consisting of experts from the more than 100 organisations that collectively account for more than 2% of the national GDP.

An important choice motivated by the fact that the global market for sustainable finance exceeded USD 730 billion in the first nine months of 2025, with a forecast of growth up to a trillion by the end of the year, while in Italy the most mature companies in terms of ESG record a 46% increase in share value compared to the others.

"Today, it is not enough to declare that you are designing a sustainable infrastructure: you have to demonstrate, with clear and comparable criteria, that that sustainability is measurable," emphasises Lorenzo Orsenigo, president of Ais. "This is what sustainable finance demands and what we too often fail to provide in Italy. The result? 'A misalignment between those who design and those who finance, which slows down the realisation of strategic works'. "Green capital is there and growing, but it will not come unless we offer rigorous standards and a common language," argues the organisation's president. With the working table we are launching, we want to provide the country with an unambiguous, transparent and credible model, capable of enhancing the best projects and intercepting new investments in the medium to long term'

According to the 'Ais 2025 Report - The Value of Sustainability', companies that are more mature in terms of ESG perform better and have easier access to capital. Internationally, Esg funds outperformed traditional funds in 2023, with average returns of 12.6 per cent versus 8.6 per cent.

"The data," Ais emphasises, "confirm that investors are increasingly attentive to quality and ESG criteria. Also supporting the initiative is data from the EY Infrastructure Barometer Italy 2025, presented during the 'Sustainable Infrastructure and Finance. A new model', which shows that 35% of investors expect new investments in the energy sector (renewables and efficiency); 66% expect an increase in competition for infrastructure investments in Italy; only 13% do not consider ESG criteria in their investment processes, confirming that sustainability is now a structural requirement.