The digital transformation of the Public Administration is no longer just a technical or infrastructural issue: it is a lever of public, sustainable value, capable of generating economic and social spin-offs, if guided with vision and awareness. The challenge is not only to ‘go digital’, but to ensure that digital serves the PA – and the PA knows how to interpret it – operating not as a mere user, but as a structural enabler of participation, transparency, and equity. In this sense, the provisions of the first paragraph of Article 3 of our Constitution are fulfilled: ‘All citizens have equal social dignity and are equal before the law’, and the removal of obstacles that prevent the full participation of citizens in the life of the country also becomes a digital mission.

When the administration uses technology with the role it really deserves – close to the citizen, inclusive, proactive – a framework of digital sustainability is drawn up that is capable of generating value: economic (efficiency, quality, savings) and social (inclusion, reduction of the gap, activated rights). In such a vision, public sector in-house companies – those ‘daughters’ of the PA, with mixed governance, subject to public rather than purely for-profit values – emerge as strategic players: intelligent operational levers that can translate the PA’s vision into digital architectures and administrative processes truly at the service of citizens.

In-house companies as guarantors of public value

In-house companies do not remain secondary: they are not extras, but rather decisive tools to ensure that digital sustainability does not remain an aspiration, but is translated into action. They have the ability to attract talent, operate with more streamlined procedures than the traditional PA, and dialogue with the market without losing sight of the general interest. In this, in-house companies embody sustainability: because they align technological action with the public interest, avoiding speculative drifts or design inconsistencies.

The hybrid positioning – not profit-driven, but oriented towards the quality and effectiveness of public intervention – makes these companies unique. In an ecosystem where PA demand and market supply often struggle to understand each other, in-house companies act as ‘intelligent mediators’: they interpret the needs of public bodies, translate requirements into technical requirements, and structure public demand so that it is recognisable and sustainable for vendors. They start from a wealth of knowledge built up over time – infrastructures, systems, software architectures, administrative processes – a human and information capital that cannot be improvised or easily replicated.

This gives rise to the complementary and subsidiary function of in-house companies: they are part of the same institutional family as the originating PA, but also look outwards. They know the language of the market, but they are not its victims; they understand the PA’s timeframe, but they know how important an innovation arrived at the right time is. This is why, in the digital transformation of administrations – understood as the transition from a paper-based and reactive administration to a proactive, interoperable, citizen-oriented PA – in-house companies become frontier agents: they implement, but also interpret; they deliver, but translate political vision into technical architecture, rights into processes.

Digital sustainability projects promoted by in-house

In-house companies operate on strategic infrastructures – regional data centres, interoperable platforms for citizen services, cybersecurity control – areas that require flexibility, clear competences and governance. Let us take the actions of ACI Informatica S.p.A. as an example: in its Sustainability Reports (already in the editions starting from 2022 and up to the last Report of 2024) it is noted how the dimension of ‘digital sustainability’ is explicitly declined in relation to ICT, flanking traditional ESG policies. Moreover, ACI Informatica has promoted the educational project ‘RoLS: Rompiamo Le Scatole’ (Let’s Break the Boxes) – in collaboration with the Foundation for Digital Sustainability – to develop conscious digital skills among students, breaking passive logics of use and making young people real actors of change. All this shows how in-house organisations can promote projects where technology becomes a lever of digital citizenship, not just a tool.

Economic and social value from sustainable digitisation

Digital sustainability, if properly deployed, produces economic value: for example, through optimisation of processes, reduction of operating costs, efficiency of investments, and greater interoperability between authorities that avoids duplication and inefficiency. At the same time it creates social value: access to digital services becomes inclusive, territorial or social distance is reduced, barriers are lowered, the administration becomes closer and more participatory. In-house, being rooted in the PA but operational on a technical level, generates a twofold impact: on the one hand it improves the efficiency of the public machine, on the other hand it strengthens citizens’ trust and participation. In this way, the constitutional goal of equality and participation is made concrete.

Methodologies for measuring the social impact of digitisation: Praxis 147

But it is not enough to ‘do digital’ and ‘do sustainable’: we need to measure. And this is where UNI/PdR 147 comes into play. The practice – the first at European level for the digital sustainability of transformation projects – outlines requirements and indicators (KPIs) applicable in all phases of the project life cycle: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring/closure.

In its 2023 edition, the practice included 58 KPIs related to 11 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda. Subsequently, the 2025 version updated its structure: around 50 indicators, five-level metrics inspired by the CMM maturity model, and alignment with ESG reporting standards (ESRS) and digital transition accounting.

For in-house and PA, this means being able to translate the value produced into numbers and governance systems: measuring not only ‘how much’ but also ‘how’ and ‘how well’. Through practice, impacts can be tracked in terms of digital equity, inclusion, accessibility, reduction of the technological and social divide. KPIs become tools to make transparent the contribution that digitisation generates on the public good.

Initiatives for digital equity and social inclusion

Digital sustainability is not just green IT, nor mere energy balance: it is the ability to produce digital services that do not widen the gap between the haves and have-nots – of bandwidth, tools, skills, access capabilities. In-house can integrate an inclusive approach: designing technology infrastructures that are not neutral but designed for accessibility, proximity, and citizen education. Initiatives – such as ‘Let’s break the boxes’ – show how education, awareness and digital skills are an integral part of the process. In-house can also activate platforms for digital participation, tools for ‘fragile’ citizens, simple, transparent online services designed with usability and accessibility criteria. In this way, digital transformation becomes a factor of social cohesion and not exclusion.

Conclusion

Maximising public value through digital sustainability requires actors who know how to operate at the crossroads of technology and public mandate. In-house companies play exactly this role: they are not mere executors, but co-authors of transformation. Precisely as ‘contact zones’ between systems, processes and citizens, they trace safe paths and help the PA to read and change the digital landscape. But for this to happen, clear governance is needed, an unstated mission with objectives, indicators and monitoring tools; digital sustainability must not remain a slogan, but become infrastructure; digital investments must reduce obstacles instead of building new ones.
Thus, transformation and participation become a single trajectory: towards full, universal and digital citizenship.