For the summer of 2024, 21 marine and 12 lake resorts have been awarded prizes in the "Il mare più bello 2024" guide by Legambiente and Touring Club Italiano. The guide reviews more than 300 Italian coastal municipalities, with a section also dedicated to the most beautiful lakes, awarding the highest recognition, the Five Sails, to those municipalities that have managed to best combine the quality of services offered to tourists with courageous and innovative choices in the name of environmental sustainability.
Legambiente, through its local clubs and the Goletta Verde (Green Schooner) initiative, has carefully examined the peninsula and the islands, assigning 'sails' to each tourist area: from 1 to 5, with 5 being the maximum score. These sails represent not only water purity, but also overall environmental quality, availability of services, and energy consumption. The issues assessed include land use, energy, waste, food safety, water purification and sustainability initiatives. The parameters are divided into two main categories: environmental quality and quality of accommodation services. The choice of indicators and their allocation to different macro-areas is based on key requirements defined at European level, with input from the network of ecolabels following the criteria of the Life project "VISIT".
Sardinia dominates the competition among the regions with seven seaside resorts awarded the Five Sails, while Trentino-Alto Adige excels among the lake resorts with four municipalities among the first twelve classified.
The autonomous provinces of Trentino and South Tyrol occupy first and second place with the Five Sails awarded respectively to the municipality of Molveno (Tn), located on the lake of the same name, and Appiano sulla Strada del Vino (Bz), on Lake Monticolo. In third place is Massa Marittima (Gr), a Maremma locality located on Lake Accesa in Tuscany. Next, we find Sospirolo (Bl) on Lake Mis, in Veneto, and Avigliana on the lake of the same name in Piedmont.
At the regional level, Trentino-Alto Adige is confirmed as the region with the highest number of localities awarded the sustainability flag, followed by Piedmont and Lombardy.
