(Sir Europe – Brussels) – A new initiative in the run-up to the Earth Summit “Rio+20” (Rio de Janeiro, 20-22 June) has been launched by Eurostat to raise public awareness of environmental sustainability. It is a guidebook called “Figures for the future. 20 years of sustainable development in Europe” (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu[>>]), which discloses the EU’s sustainable development indicators (Sdi). However, such results are seen through the eyes of a 17-year-old student, Anne, who is responsible for “humanising” the statistics provided by Eurostat by informing the citizens the world over about the breakthroughs of the last two decades. The document lists 70 indicators used by the European Union to measure sustainable development, and four videos support their contents. Through this Marta journalist character, the citizens are also led to learn more about such key issues as GDP growth, employment, energy, transport, regional inequalities, poverty and social exclusion, waste, climate change, globalisation, international community engagements, social ageing and green growth. The purpose of the publication is to “make such problems accessible to all citizens, not just to specialists, through a more straightforward and understandable approach”.

15/06/2012 -