Conference Agenda

Social Impact Bonds (SIBs), conceptualized in 2010 (Cohen, 2011), represent an innovative financial mechanism designed to foster more effective public-private partnerships in addressing complex social challenges. These outcome-based contracts involve three primary stakeholders: private investors who assume the financial risk, service providers who deliver interventions to address societal issues, and outcome payers—typically government entities acting on behalf of targeted populations (Chiappello and Knoll, 2020). SIBs align incentives across these actors by linking financial returns to the achievement of predefined social outcomes, thereby offering a results-driven approach to funding social initiatives. This study examines the feasibility of introducing SIBs in Rome, Italy, with a particular focus on mitigating social disparities and promoting equity. The research seeks to assess the city’s readiness to adopt this innovative instrument by exploring its institutional capacities, identifying relevant stakeholders, and analyzing the conditions necessary to achieve both financial sustainability and measurable social impact. Additionally, the study addresses the broader implications of SIB adoption, including the potential to stimulate systemic change in how public services are delivered and evaluated. A mixed-methods approach was employed to achieve these objectives. Qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews with policymakers, nonprofit organizations, and potential investors to uncover their perceptions, motivations, and concerns regarding SIB implementation. Quantitative analysis included the development of a financial modeling framework to estimate potential returns on investment, assess cost-effectiveness, and project outcome metrics. To enhance the robustness of the findings, comparative case studies of SIB implementations in other European cities were analyzed, providing insights into best practices, challenges, and lessons applicable to the Italian context. The study concludes by presenting a comprehensive roadmap for the introduction of SIBs in Rome. This roadmap outlines strategic priorities such as fostering stakeholder engagement, building institutional capacity, and creating an enabling environment for outcome-based contracting. The proposed framework also emphasizes the importance of rigorous outcome measurement and ongoing evaluation to ensure accountability and transparency.

The European Union is committed to achieving the so-called ‘twin transitions’ – ecological and digital – with the aim of transforming its economic and social systems in line with the European Green Deal, which aspires to make the European economy the first to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and the Digital Decade Policy Programme 2030, which seeks to fully integrate advanced technologies across all economic and social sectors.

A fundamental component of the ecological transition is the energy transition, which involves transforming Europe’s energy system towards more sustainable, efficient, and low-carbon models. The digitalisation of the energy system is a crucial pillar of this process, enabling the integration of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) to address the challenges of the energy transition.

AI applications in the energy sector can be particularly effective in managing renewable resources, which are characterised by their intermittent and unpredictable nature. AI enhances forecasting of renewable energy production, optimises energy storage systems, and ensures more stable grid balancing. Furthermore, in a decentralised energy market that emphasises the active role of consumers, Smart Home Energy Management Systems (SHEMS) play a pivotal role. These intelligent systems are designed to optimise energy consumption in homes, improving energy efficiency, reducing costs, and enhancing user comfort. They enable consumers to monitor real-time energy usage, adjust their behaviour to optimise consumption during off-peak hours, and actively participate in the grid by contributing to its stability through demand-side adjustments. In this context, the application of AI in the energy sector can be regarded as a form of social innovation, as it has the potential to trigger a transformation in how citizens engage with energy, ultimately delivering benefits to the wider community.

AI also facilitates the integration of two commons: energy and food. Specifically, it plays a key role in addressing the technical and operational challenges of agrivoltaic systems, which sit at the intersection of energy production and agriculture. By ensuring the optimal use of resources, AI can maximise the benefits for both activities. Through predictive algorithms, AI can enhance the synergy between agricultural production and renewable energy, tailoring photovoltaic systems to the specific needs of crops and minimising environmental impacts.

However, the widespread implementation of AI poses significant challenges. Dependence on high-quality data and system interoperability present technical hurdles, while cybersecurity vulnerabilities and ethical implications raise concerns regarding security and transparency. In this context, the EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689/EU) plays a crucial role by providing a regulatory framework to govern the development and application of AI, ensuring a balance between technological innovation, safety, and the protection of fundamental rights.

This paper examines the potential and limitations of AI in the European energy sector, highlighting how this technology can accelerate the achievement of the EU’s climate and digital objectives. It concludes that a robust regulatory framework is essential to maximise the benefits of AI while mitigating its risks.

Following the U.N. 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in 2015 196 States adopted at the UN Climate Change Conference COP21 the Paris Agreement, an international treaty which has the goal to tackle climate change holding the increase of the global average temperature below 2° C above pre-industrial levels as well as pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1,5°C above these levels. To achieve these results, all countries have to reduce significantly their greenhouse emissions. The energy sector is the largest contribution to greenhouse emissions: therefore, the major countries emitters are undergoing programms to promote renewable resources for energy production. The “green” transition represents an opportunity for the public administration to experiment new models to carry out its activity, promoting social innovation, empowering citizens and community organizations and enhancing it’s capacity to deliver services efficiently. The aim of this research is to analyze how public administration can use renewable energy communities to deliver the green transition promoting an active role for citizens, focusing on solutions adopted in Europe (and Italy) and the United States. The European Union, with the adoption of the European Green Deal, aims to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. The Directive 2018/2001 requires the Member States to foster the establishment of Renewable Energy Community (REC), which are intended as an institution whose members, who are predominantly consumers, can satisfy their energy needs through electricity produced through own plants, such as photovoltaic installations, as well as offer their excess electricity for sale. The Italian law on REC (d.lgs. 199/2021) allows even to local authorities to establish RECs: consequently, the public administration can support the green transition involving the citizens directly, who from consumers become producers, being called to participate directly, in a democratic way, in the management of the community. The U.S. adopted in 2022 the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is projected to reduce greenhouse emissions to 40% by 2030 promoting the production of clean energy. Among the measures that IRA outlines to deliver the green transition, a key role is played by the solar communities. These are institutions that allow customers to buy a portion of the energy generated by a solar array in order to receive an electric bill credit for the electricity generated by their share of the community solar system. In particular, IRA has introduced significant incentives for the purchase of shares in order to further develop the green market of the solar communities.Furthermore, the Department of Energy launched a programm to ensure the access of low-income household to solar communities, supporting public power utilities in the establishment of new solar plants which are dedicated to this rage users. Despite both European and American strategies to deliver the green transition include renewable energy communities, how they are used to promote social inclusion and an active role for citizens are quite different. The research has the aim to outline these differences as well as their impact on the capability to ensure a justice green transition.

According to a now rather widespread statement, data represents the oil of the digital age.

While this observation clearly highlights the importance of the digital economy, it simultaneously invites reflection on the utilities derivable from a systemic use of data in the public interest (briefly, public interest data).

Public interest data can fall into various categories: they may be private or public, open or undisclosed, personal or non-personal. Furthermore, such data represents a crucial element offering transformative potential for social innovation and inclusive governance.

However, the existence of various regimes – despite largely being aimed at facilitating the free flow of data (e.g., the regime for personal data under GDPR or those governing the reuse of public information) – creates obstacles to fully leveraging these data. This is a serious shortcoming given that such data could be used by public administrations, including in the context of public-private partnerships, to develop public policies and new forms of services.

One possible way to overcome the challenges related to the underuse of public interest data could lie in qualifying such data as commons.

The theory of commons, in fact, enables a focus on the management dimension of goods, thus promoting their use regardless of their ownership regime and in accordance with a collective perspective.

The theory of commons, in fact, provides a framework centered on collaborative governance, promoting equitable access and sustainable use of resources. By prioritizing cooperative management, it encourages the alignment of individual and collective interests, facilitating innovation and inclusivity in resource utilization. Moreover, it offers a flexible approach to address different ownership models, making it particularly suitable for complex assets like data, where traditional property regimes may fall short in maximizing public value.

However, applying this theory raises a series of questions. First of all, can data be qualified as goods and, consequently, as commons? How does European regulation on the digital and data markets address this issue? How might the governance of public interest data as commons be structured? What role does the public sector may play in this framework?

This contribution aims to answer these questions, seeking to advance the debate on public interest data as commons.

From a methodological point of view the research combines theoretical insights with practical case studies. It adopts a legal-analytical methodology, employing doctrinal analysis to interpret existing frameworks and identify potential pathways in the regulation for the configuration of public interest data as commons.

Comparative case studies are identified to illustrate practical applications and challenges for the management of public interest data as commons. In this context, particular importance is attributed to the phenomenon of data cooperatives, which is quite widespread globally and has already given rise to several case studies of shared data management.