The rural environment is the traditional strong point of the Sienese territory, which is also known thanks to images that have been spread all over the world (of the Crete Senesi, Valdorcia,
churches, castles, medieval towers, and white roads adorned with cypress trees), that have also been immortalized in internationally successful motion pictures. A rural environment which, beyond its own natural beauty, also creates employment opportunities and guarantees a high quality output, owing to its strong specialization in production which has developed in recent years.
The Provincial Administration of Siena has long activated a system of government that aims to preserve and appreciate the environment, to improve its environmental services, and to assure that the environment will also represent an instrument that may open new possibilities for development. The theme of environmental governance for the Province of Siena was and is the decisive theme for territorial development. A governance that also implicates new responsibilities in terms of communication and participation, as much for the private citizen as for the policy maker.
Environment is an integral part of territorial planning, and is an essential parameter of every policy choice. By virtue of this knowledge and experience, the Provincial Administration has now activated strategies of sustainability for the entire provincial territory. Not by chance, the Province of Siena has been certified ISO 14001 and EMAS registered in 2006. Provincial Administration of Siena has begun a new phase of environmental management in the Province of Siena; it is a phase in which the local institution becomes the protagonist of good environmental practices, researches efficiency, “systemizes” the environment within the entire territory, and shares and diffuses its own experiences and results with its citizens.
Environmental projects activated
The Systems of Environmental Management: ISO 14001 Certification and EMAS Registration
The Province of Siena was the first Italian Provincial Administration to earn the ISO 14001 Environmental Certification – awarded in 2003 – for the planning activities, territorial management, environmental monitoring, managing of infrastructures and Services, and to have undertaken a journey towards the “territorial” certification. For this purpose, a project that foresees the environmental certification of 11 Municipalities of the province has already been set into motion. Province of Siena earned EMAS registration in 2006.
Agenda 21 Terre di Siena
In 2002, 36 Municipalities of the Province of Siena signed the first Agreement Protocol, which initiated the journey towards AG21L Terre di Siena in its Districts and Municipalities.In 2006, Province of Siena signed the new Agreement Protocol with all of the 36 Municipalities of the Sienese territory, thanks to which all adhering subjects have taken on the responsibilities of the Aalborg Commitments. Agenda 21 Terre di Siena has also entered into the public schools, with the project S.S.Ø. – Didactic Experiences of Sustainable Development for the Schools of the Province of Siena.
Provincial Energy Plan
The PEP has been founded with the intent to sustain the efforts of the local Sienese authorities, so that they may endow themselves with an energy policy that may orient towards change and mitigate the effects of the crisis of our current energy production and consumption model. The priority of the Plan is the reduction of the “energy bill” and of environmental impacts, in conformity with the obligations of the Kyoto Protocol.
Provincial Agency for Energy and the Environment of Siena
The Provincial Agency for Energy and the Environment of Siena s.r.l. unipersonale (www.apea.siena.it), was established in 2003 by the initiative of the Provincial Administration of Siena. APEA is one of the instruments that has been identified as a priority by the Provincial Energy Plan (PEP) for the technical and operative realization of the planning choices formalized in the Plan, with particular attention to the promotion of interventions and initiatives dealing with the saving and rationalization of energetic resources, the promotion and development of renewable resources of energy, and to the management of the negotiation of energy in the free market.
“A Safe House with a Clean Boiler” Campaign
The Province of Siena has activated a campaign for saving energy and for the safety of thermal 
systems. An Agreement Protocol was promoted with the Chamber of Commerce, the Municipality, the trade Associations of craftsmen’s businesses, and the consumer associations for the activation of the campaign to maintain and inspect the thermal systems located in the Municipalities of the Province of Siena (excluding the Municipality of Siena, whose qualified authority for the inspections is the Municipal Administration of Siena).
The SPIn-Eco Project: A Prospect of Sustainability for the Province of Siena
This research, conducted over the course of four years, has focused on the study of the Sienese territory through a set of sustainability indicators that provide information on the state of systems under examination, and may also allow for an evaluation of potential development alternatives. Such evidence has now established a significant survey basis that may be shared with other projects and institutions, beyond being a reference for the future strategic choices of the Provincial Body.
The Territorial Information System (T.I.S.)
The Province of Siena, aware of the strategic value of a Territorial Information System for knowledge and consequently for territorial planning, has provided itself with its own T.I.S. since 1996. The T.I.S. is the instrument that allows for the study of the territory, not by treating it as an assembly of parts, but by relating the individual units that compose it. Structurally, it is constructed of a nucleus carrying numerical mapping (territorialization of data) and of a series of alphanumeric archives of descriptions of objects and phenomenon, as well as a ring of applicatory packets that allow for analysis and investigation that may be repeated, standardized, or free, whose results move to update the central archive with a continuous augmentation of information. The data is treated as geographic, or georeferenced, data.
Natural Reserves
The Province of Siena, in 1996, instituted 11 Natural Reserves (10,556 ha.) in order to safeguard and protect environments of elevated natural, historical, and cultural value.
These 11 Reserves constitute a System, with the scope of guaranteeing and promoting, in a coordinated manner, the conservation and valorisation of the environment, the landscape, and of the historical-cultural and natural heritage of the province.
Population: 252.288
Area: 3821,22 kmq.
Population density: 66,02 kmq.
Unemployement: 3%.