Milan’s water and sanitation service:from full direct provision to corporatization

This paper is focused on a case study on Milan’s water and sanitation service (MIWSS) in the 2003-2013 time frame. Since 2003, MI-WSS has been provided by Metropolitana Milanese SpA (MM) which is a joint stock company fully owned by Milan’s municipality. MM not only operates the water service but also civil engineering services mainly in the transport sector. A historical approach is adopted as a background, to tackle the evolution from direct municipal provision to an autonomous and corporatized WSS and give more depth to the case study. Commitment to public service mission and general interests’ goals is discussed adopting a historical approach too to appreciate the switch from full direct provision to corporatized provision. Limiting the analysis to MM only would be too restrictive and we propose instead to adopt a wider perimeter which includes all the stakeholders of Milan’s WSS. Such an enlarged perimeter of analysis is particularly relevant to discuss regulation and governance issues. In the water sector public service mission includes many goals which should be appreciated adopting a long run and intergenerational perspective and expressed in terms of sustainability. Applying sustainability criteria to Milan’s WSS raises more than one question.