Evergreen Conservation Capital Indicators and Life Expectancy in Italy

A major development challenge has been to reconcile regional development with the growing evidence of resource depletion and negative environmental impacts of predominantly urban modes of production and consumption. Looking at many relevant European programs, it emerges that state members are engaged in the protection and valorization of environmental resources. In Italy, the conservation of natural capital is an objective shared by public and private actors. The implications that depend on the environmental quality assessment are many and fall in various fields. The level of conservation and valorization of the environmental capital of an area generates several impacts and deep repercussions on the well-being and health of residents. In this contribution, we aim to analyze the relationship between human development and conservative capital, investigating the linkage existing between the quality of natural capital for the different Italian Regions, as well as the ability of various regional governments to enhance its natural resources, and the state of health of residents expressed as life expectancy using the method of Mazziotta and Pareto Index (MPI). The evidences show the existence of a correlation between ECCI and life expectancy at birth and life expectancy in good health. This result shows further that environmental quality can have impacts on residents’ health in a given area.