Begun in 2000, the Sino-Italian Cooperation Program for the Environmental Protection (SICP) has become an international model of a partnership effective in addressing the key solutions for the sustainable development and in leveraging public and private resources.

As work toward establishment of the program began at the end of the 1990s, China had started to draft its own domestic roadmap for environmental protection.

However, at an international level, few countries were ready to risk investment in the environmental cooperation in China.

Italy decided to invest in the sustainable development of the country, looking at the global effects of environmental protection in China, and taking into account the future key role of the environmental technologies in its economic growth.

The SICP was developed through bilateral agreements with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Ministry of Science and Technology, and Ministry of Water Resources in China.

The program is implemented in collaboration with a number of Chinese institutions including the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the State Forestry Administration, the National Development and Reform Commission, the municipal governments of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Xi'an, Suzhou, Lanzhou and Urumqi, Tsinghua University in Beijing, Jiaotong and Tongji universities in Shanghai, and Bureau of Coordination for the Shanghai World Expo .

In the past 10 years, more than 200 projects have been implemented within the program with a total value of 342 million euros ($376 million).

A taskforce of Italian and Chinese experts has been working in the Shanghai and Beijing offices on sustainable development in fields ranging from energy to climate change, urban environment and air quality, integrated management of water resources, sustainable agriculture, elimination of persistent organic pollutants, combat desertification, training and capacity building.

Among the SICP success case, the projects for the Shanghai World Expo 2010 stood as a valuable pilot experience of sustainable urban development with the realization in the Urban Best Practices Area of two exemplary sustainable energy-efficient buildings.

The design and construction, mostly financed by the World Expo Coordination Bureau, was entrusted to Italian architects and engineers, prioritizing the employ of Italian technologies, lighting, facades and building materials.

Sino-Italian Cooperation Program for the Environmental Protection provided the story.

(China Daily 06/02/2011 page18)