Before reaching 2030 there are still four years of poorly managed buses, bills to understand, schools to keep up, air to breathe and territories that continue to run at different speeds. Then the numbers arrive, and they bring order where daily life only seems to accumulate fatigue. Istat’s 2026 SDGs Report arrives at a rather inconvenient point in the calendar. There are only four years left until the 2030 Agenda expires and the country finds itself faced with a photograph full of details: some make you breathe, others immediately put your feet back on the ground.
And on the ground the picture is this: Italy is moving, yes. Except that he does it with the pace of someone who accelerates every now and then, then stops, then changes direction, then discovers that a part of the country is already ahead and another is still trudging along with his shoes untied.
In the last year, according to Istat, 51% of the measures considered have improved. Over a quarter remain stable, while 24% worsen. Looking at the last ten years, 53.8% of the measures show a positive trend, 11.3% go backwards and 34.8% remain in that gray area that says a lot: intermittent progress, results that do not consolidate, advances that seem good until the next data arrives to cool the enthusiasm.
A country that proceeds in spurts
The ninth edition of the Report brings together 321 statistical measures, linked to 148 indicators from the United Nations framework. It is a huge machine, built to follow the 17 Goals of the 2030 Agenda: poverty, health, education, gender equality, water, energy, work, cities, climate, ecosystems, justice, cooperation.
The useful point, however, lies less in the quantity of numbers and more in the design that emerges from them. Four years from 2030, sustainability does not resemble an orderly march. It resembles a house in which some rooms have been tidied up, others still have buckets under the leaks and someone continues to say that “then we’ll think about it”.
The improvements are there. Goal 17, on partnerships, advances in all the measures considered. Goal 10, on the reduction of inequalities, benefits from the increase in family incomes and a less unbalanced distribution. Goal 2 shows positive signs on some measures related to agricultural sustainability.
In the long term, gender equality, energy, business, innovation and infrastructure are also doing better. The climate and life on earth show some favorable trends, but with a negative note that weighs heavily: Goal 15 also records the highest share of worsening measures.
Poverty and school remain with us
The social part of the Report is the one that brings everything back to a less abstract dimension. In 2024, absolute poverty concerns approximately 5.7 million people, 9.8% of residents. In 2025 the share of the population at risk of poverty or social exclusion drops to 22.6%, also thanks to employment growth, but the improvement is not enough to take away the weight of the territorial gap.
In the South the risk of poverty or social exclusion reaches 38.4%. In the North it stops at 13.1%. Almost three times as much. This is enough to understand how fragile it is to talk about “Italy” in the singular.
Education also shows visible cracks. Goal 4 worsens in the last year due to the deterioration of student skills and the decrease in the share of young graduates. Translated out of the language of the reports: some of the kids arrive weaker at the decisive points, and the country loses pieces precisely where it should be building a future.
Then there is Goal 16, the one on peace, justice and institutions. The declining representation of women and youth in Parliament and the increase in prison crowding weigh heavily here. This too is sustainability, although it is less impressive than a solar panel or a cycle path.
The environment improves where it succeeds, it remains stagnant where it weighs most
On the environmental front, the 2026 SDGs Report offers a less comfortable snapshot than the usual “good, let’s continue like this” headlines. In the Goals related to water, life under water and life on land, many measures are stable. And stability, when it comes to the climate crisis, biodiversity and natural resources, can also be a bit of a lazy word.
Some urban data, however, points in the right direction. In 2024, the share of capital municipalities with high concentrations of PM2.5, above 20 micrograms per cubic meter, drops to 11%, compared to 25% in 2014. In 2023, premature deaths attributable to exposure to PM2.5 also decrease: 73 per 100 thousand inhabitants, compared to 86 in 2022.
Small signals also arrive from transport. In 2025, families who declare difficulties in connecting to public transport, students who regularly use public transport and frequent users improve slightly. However, the overall offer of local public transport in the capital municipalities remains substantially stable in 2024, with 4,699 seat-km per inhabitant. A precise figure, behind which there is a very everyday thing: how simple, or exasperating, it is to leave the car stationary.
The usual two-speed Italy, with some cracks in the scheme
The Report insists a lot on the territories, and it is good. Because the Sustainable Development Goals are not achieved in the same way in Bolzano, Palermo, Reggio Calabria or in an internal municipality with few services and many departures.
In the “People” and “Prosperity” areas, the gap that we know all too well returns: the North appears more often above the national average, the South collects many of the fragilities. Campania, Calabria and Sicily show strong vulnerabilities in disposable income and risk of poverty. On the other hand, the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, Emilia-Romagna and Valle d’Aosta present a lower risk of poverty and fewer inequalities in income distribution.
The environmental part, however, breaks the automaticity a bit. In the “Planet” area the geography is more nuanced and, by many measures, favorable to the South. Energy and consumption also tell the story of a country in motion, but with the brakes still on: renewables are growing, installed capacity is increasing, separate waste collection continues to rise, while the consumption of internal materials, hazardous special waste and energy efficiency remain much less convenient issues to talk about.
On the climate, then, the Report highlights an Italy already exposed to landslides, floods, forest fires and temperature anomalies: not the distant background of the climate crisis, but the floor under your feet. The country remains divided, but not always along the same lines.
The SDGs 2026 Report leaves a fairly clear impression. Italy has made progress, and it would be foolish to pretend otherwise. But 2030 is close, the data is not moving and some delays have the bad habit of surviving every political season. They remain there, like a stain on the wall that no one looks at anymore because it is now part of the furniture.
You might also be interested in:
