From 2005 to 2023, in Italy, the circular economy sector showed signs of economic strengthening, with an increase in value added (+0.4 percentage points on GDP) and investments (+0.2 points), but a decrease in relative employment (-0.2 points), highlighting the need for policies that accompany the transition with greater attention to inclusion and the social dimension of circular work.

The circular material use rate measures the share of material resources reused by an economy. In the period 2004–2023, Italy's circular material use rate increased from 5.8% to 20.8%.

In 2024 Italy confirms itself among the EU leader countries in terms of eco-innovation, with performances above the European average in resource efficiency, energy productivity, and emissions. Between 2014 and 2024, the Italian index grew by +39.2 percentage points (pp), exceeding the EU average increase (+27.5 pp), with a particularly marked improvement in resource efficiency (+64.4 pp compared to +62 pp EU).

Statistical information on environmental taxes can be broken down by tax category, the units paying the tax, the class of environmental activity, and the destination of the revenue. In Italy, environmental taxes amounted to €60.8 billion in 2024 (+11.6% compared to the previous year). In 2023, revenue from environmental taxes accounted for about 6.1% of total tax and social contribution revenue and about 3% of Gross Domestic Product in 2024.

In 2022, the sixth edition of the Catalogue of Environmentally Relevant Subsidies identified a total of 183 measures, resulting in €24.2 billion in Environmentally Harmful Subsidies (EHS) and €20.2 billion in Environmentally Beneficial Subsidies (EBS), representing a year-on-year increase of 15.1% and a decrease of 2.5%, respectively. Subsidies amounting to €13.8 billion were classified as having uncertain environmental impact, marking a 7.5% increase compared to 2021. Among the Environmentally Harmful Subsidies, those related to fossil fuels accounted for €17 billion in 2022 (compared to €13 billion in 2020 and €14.8 billion in 2021).

In 2024, Domestic Material Consumption in Italy stood at 486 million tonnes (-0.7% compared to 2023), while Resource Productivity grew to 3.76 euro/kg (+1.4%), confirming an improvement in the efficiency of the use of natural resources.

Italy has structurally reduced its material footprint, going from 17.9 to 10.3 tonnes per capita between 2008 and 2024, reaching values lower than the EU average. This result reflects significant progress in terms of efficiency and circularity, but it requires consolidating the decoupling between economic growth and resource consumption in order to make the competitive advantage durable.