The green economy in the Italian Alps: a geospatial indicator-based territorial assessment

This paper, through a geospatial multicriteria analysis, evaluates the green economy’s (GE) development in over 2700 Local Administrative Units (LAUs) of Italian Alps, incorporating geographical, environmental, and socio-economic variables). LAUs have been classified across altitude and urbanization to examine how socio-demographic and territorial peculiarities impact GE indexes performance. Results highlight heterogeneous GE domain performance that depend on socio-demographic and territorial conditions. Low-density municipalities score lower in local economic competitiveness, accessibility, GHG reduction, and air pollution. High-density municipalities have lower equality and human well-being scores. Findings suggest regional and province-level regulations’ relevance in driving performance variation, aiding local and national governments in shaping ad hoc policies for territorial advancement.