SanfereOrto is an experience born in 2017 in Lodi (Italy), in the San Fereolo district, from collaborating with local public institutions and various private entities thanks to financing by an Italian banking foundation. The Lodi area is a fragile territory comprising small villages, with depopulation processes underway and an increasing lack of services overall. Lodi is the provincial seat and is a point of reference for the territory; the San Fereolo district, although close to the historic center, is perceived as the back of the city, and the presence of a railway line marks its physical and cultural break.

It is precisely there that we tried to transform an unused space into a common good. Among the main objectives of this experience, attention to the environment, understood as an ecosystem in which people and nature dialogue, is placed at the center of both the activities of transforming the physicality of the spaces and of the educational proposals shared with the inhabitants and the communities involved. Around SanfereOrto, paths of construction of active citizenship have been started, with the involvement of schools and the inclusion of vulnerable people. Many energies have allowed us to achieve significant results in training on sustainability issues, increasing opportunities for relationships between people, and creating real works.

Over the years, SanfereOrto has given life to a series of particularly positive projects, shared with the other partners of the Temporary Association of Purpose, specifically established, and in a network with the territory. In 2022, with the involvement, as a scientific partner, of the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of the Politecnico di Milano, an acceleration was given to the process through which SanfereOrto can play, not only in the city but also in the Lodi area, a role as an educator in good practices for sustainability. This was done through a project funded and implemented between September 2022 and December 2024. We identified the enhancement of a common good through participatory actions of social agriculture and training on issues of respect for the environment as a key factor in the experience already underway. Then we planned an initial experiment in a small village where, thanks to the activation of community-building processes, laboratory experiences were shared with the inhabitants, also oriented towards beekeeping, and workshops for the redesign of underused collective open spaces, which can be transformed into common goods to be dedicated to social agriculture and environmental education activities.

The activities tested in the village were supported by structural actions that stimulated specific and widespread interventions in public and private spaces in the Lodi area. These interventions generated, like seeds, other experiences that are attentive to the environment and the people who live and work there.

The paper describes some theoretical assumptions of the Sanfereorto experience, defines its objectives and methodology with particular reference to good practices of education for sustainability, reports the most significant results from this point of view, and, finally, in the conclusions, tries to outline the possible lines of development and diffusion.

Keywords: Fragile territories, environment, good practices for sustainability, participatory actions, social agriculture, community-building processes, workshops.