Sustainability as a turning point for the success of megaprojects. The Italian approach

The inclusion of the principles of sustainability as a management con- straint for megaprojects, can represent an effective turning point to define project success goals in the long term, measuring economic benefits in terms of reduction of capital costs, regulatory compliance, waste of energy and material resources; social benefits intended as improvement of the organization’s reputation; stakeholder involvement and inclusion, more effective and direct communication; environmental benefits in terms of reduction of environmental impact and environmental compliance control. From the point of view of the Italian approach, the authors point out that there are already interesting examples of inclusion of sustainability principles in the management of complex projects. One example is the new Ponte San Giorgio in Genoa, reconstructed with a participatory and active in- volvement of stakeholders in the record time of two years. The research conducted so far is still at an early stage and this work has been carried out mainly based on a review of the literature on the subject. The next steps of the research will include the development of interviews, as well as questionnaires addressed to organizations representing megaproject stakeholders, with the aim of collecting a relevant number of case studies (trying to assess the Italian way to Megaprojects), providing lessons learned, best practices and hints for further consideration made available for coming megaprojects. The main focus will be to understanding what are the best practices already available in the application of sustainability in Megapro- jects in Italy and analyzing if their implementation actually lead to longer term success factors.