Sewage sludge management options and civil society stakeholders’ influence: first evidence from Italian cases

Abstract

Sewage sludge management is a pivotal process in the path toward sustainability, broadening the scope of wastewater treatment from removing pollutants to recycle and recover resources. Water utilities can choose among several management options and treatment technologies. The paper focuses on the possible influence of civil society stakeholders on the decision-making process of water utilities, and to investigated it, inductive case studies were conducted in Italian water utilities adopting different management options. The analysis allowed us to capture the richness of observations and make interesting variables possible shaping the relationship emerged, as the role of regulatory uncertainty. The first results show how the investigated water utilities look at other Countries for robust solutions and select the less risky in terms of civil society’s acceptance. Communication and involvement of civil society appear to be an important asset to mitigate possible negative relationships.