Today, the rediscovery and enhancement of Italian native wools has taken on a strategic role. This is not merely about recovering a frequently overlooked cultural and livestock heritage, but about building a supply chain model capable of integrating territorial identity, technological innovation and measurable sustainability.
It is within this framework that the Osservatorio FiLA – Filiera Produzione Sostenibile delle Lane Autoctone – was established. The initiative aims to map, document and support the entire value chain of Italian native wools, fostering transparency, traceability and innovation-driven processes.
The Observatory positions itself as both a cultural and technical infrastructure designed to interpret the complexity of the wool supply chain and to guide its evolution toward genuinely sustainable models.
Achievements to Date
Osservatorio FiLA has already reached significant operational milestones. An open-access georeferenced map of the Italian native wool supply chain has been implemented and made available online as a networking and visibility tool for companies, research institutions and other stakeholders.
In addition, a digital supply chain platform is fully operational, enabling data sharing, collaboration among value chain actors and the testing of innovative circular economy models.
These results demonstrate that the Observatory is not limited to defining strategic guidelines; it is already translating its circular and sustainable supply chain model into tangible tools. This provides a solid foundation for performance monitoring, impact assessment and the future scalability of the solutions developed.
Osservatorio FiLA is supported through funding under Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).
It is promoted by the Università degli Studi Gabriele d’Annunzio di Chieti-Pescara and has been formally approved and funded with the mandate to systematically analyze and monitor the native wool supply chain — from production to consumption — in alignment with the circular model trajectories promoted by MICS – Made in Italy Circolare e Sostenibile.
The Observatory performs functions including data collection, environmental performance monitoring, dissemination of findings and decision-support activities for enterprises and policy makers.
An Operational “Living Lab”
The work of the Observatory directly contributes to the objectives of the MICS partnership by proposing a concrete application within a specific supply chain segment — that of native wools — which effectively embodies the intersection of “Made in Italy” and circular sustainability.
In this sense, the Observatory operates as an applied “living lab,” translating the partnership’s overarching strategic guidelines into targeted actions, while providing data, performance indicators and technical tools to facilitate a shift in the production paradigm.
