Two important banners, symbols of its commitment to the environment and the families that every year populate its beaches, wave proudly over Lignano Sabbiadoro: the Blue Flag and the Green Flag.
What do these two awards mean? The Blue Flag rewards the municipalities that take better care of their beaches by respecting and enhancing the environment and managing the territory in a sustainable way. The Green Flag La Bandiera Verde indicates a seaside resort with characteristics suitable for children, selected through a survey conducted among a sample of paediatricians.
Lignano Blue Flag 2022
Lignano Sabbiadoro has been awarded by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) for being a seaside resort actively and positively involved in the commitment to its beaches.
Lignano and Grado are the only municipalities of Friuli Venezia Giulia to have obtained this recognition. For Lignano this is the 33rd Blue Flag award, proving that the municipality is becoming “increasingly green, it has got more and more cycle paths and, of course, it takes care for crucial services, such as separate waste collection, the quality of bathing water, and more”. The words of the Earth Councillor Paolo Ciubej well summarize the town’s pride for a seaside resort that wishes to maintain and increase its prestige in Italy and abroad.
What is the Blue Flag?
It was in 1987 that the Blue Flag was established and became an international recognition, awarded every year in 49 countries by the FEE, with the support of the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) and UNWTO (World Tourism Organization), recognized by Unesco. It is assigned by the FEE to 49 different European countries, even though it has been given to non-European countries too and is assigned to seaside resorts that meet the criteria relating to sustainable land management.
210 Italian resorts have been awarded this certification.
Blue Flag: the requirements
Receiving the Blue Flag means being recognized for your efforts and commitment to the compliance with 13 sections, and each of them is assigned a score in order to obtain a final one:
- Beach
- Bathing waters
- Water purification
- Waste management
- Environmental education and information
- Initiatives for environmental sustainability
- Environmental certification
- Tourism
- Professional fishing
The programme is periodically updated and includes 32 useful criteria to evaluate the results achieved year after year by each seaside resort. The last parameter inserted concerns social commitment and inclusiveness.
Lignano Green Flag 2022
The committee made up of 2.860 Italian and foreign paediatricians is the one that assigned the Green Flag to Lignano Sabbiadoro in 2022. This is an accreditation that witnesses the compliance of the resort with some family-friendly requirements.
There are more and more families that, at the time of choosing their holiday destinations, consider the resorts that have been awarded the Green Flag, aware of being able to find the right locality for young and old.
With reference to this award too, in the year 2022, Lignano Sabbiadoro, together with Grado, is the Friulan standard bearer of this important certification.
Green Flag: the requirements
What are the criteria used to decide which resorts to reward with the “Green Flag”?
- Presence of a wide beach with fine sand
- Clean and clear shallow water
- Space between the beach umbrellas
- Presence of assistants on the beach
- Facilities dedicated to children
- Fun opportunities for parents
Enjoying the Green Flag, therefore, does not only mean guaranteeing clean water and pristine beaches, but also ensuring everything that families need to have fun and at the same time to feel personally safe and secure.
As stated by Italo Farnetani, creator of the initiative: “When parents are in good for, so are their kids, and clubs and no-kids premises are now a thing of the past”.
It is really true and knows it well. And it is also for this reason that it is one of the top holiday destinations, where relaxation, nature and fun are never lacking.
