Morbegno is a little town in the low Valtellina

Valtellina

Valtellina or the Valtelline valley ; is a valley in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, bordering Switzerland. Today it is known for its skiing, its hot spring spas, its cheeses and its wines...

 Valley in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, on the left side of the Adda

Adda River

The Adda is a river in North Italy, a tributary of the Po. It rises in the Alps near the border with Switzerland and flows through Lake Como. The Adda joins the Po a few kilometres upstream of Cremona. It is 313 kilometres long...

 river. It is part of the province of Sondrio

Province of Sondrio

The Province of Sondrio is in the Lombardy region of Italy. Its capital is the town of Sondrio.It has an area of 3,212 km², and a total population of 176,856...

 of Lombardy

Lombardy

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...

. In 2007, Morbegno started a project to become a leader in sustainability, by involving the population in a participatory design

Participatory design

Participatory design is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders in the design process in order to help ensure the product designed meets their needs and is usable. The term is used in a variety of fields e.g...

 process, presently labelled "Morbegno 2020". Morbegno is partnering with the international non-profit organization The Natural Step

The Natural Step

The Natural Step is a non-profit organization founded in Sweden in 1989 by scientist Karl-Henrik Robèrt. Following publication of the Brundtland Report in 1987, Robèrt developed The Natural Step framework, setting out the system conditions for the sustainability of human activities on Earth;...

to design a vision of what the people living in Morbegno want to create in the long term, and choose the strategic path to move towards the vision from the present reality. Morbegno has also been selected as a pilot city in the Di.Mo.Stra. project, by the Association of Italian Municipalities for the diffusion of Strategic Planning models. Morbegno received the honorary title of city with a presidential decree on November 21, 1966.