The project is focused on gathering strategic information about the adoption of green innovations within firms. This information is crucial in order to understand the impact of these innovations on the environmental performance of economic activities. The starting point of the project is to analyse the non financial reporting data of Italian companies in order to assess business performance in terms of Circular Economy solutions.
The motivation behind the project is that environmental and circular economy metrics lack a universally accepted standard, making comparisons difficult from several types of data. As widely known, there is a limited scope of financial data about firms. The financial reports don't capture the environmental impact of a company's activities (pollution, resource use) or its efforts towards circularity (waste reduction, resource recovery).
However, the data about green innovations that can be achieved by surveys are different such as targeted surveys that can gather data on specific environmental practices (waste management, energy efficiency) and circular economy strategies (product design for recyclability, take-back programs); while employee surveys that can reveal internal commitment and awareness of sustainability goals; or customer surveys that can gauge their perception of a company's environmental efforts and preference for circular products.
A successful company meets the needs of all stakeholders, both from a financial perspective (profit, turnover and capital) and a non-financial perspective (environmental protection, employee welfare and relationship with society). The company’s strategy to build its business based on the circular economy principles is, at the same time, an act of social responsibility. Thus, there is a direct link between the circular economy (EC) and corporate social responsibility (CSR), so that the way of applying the principles of the circular economy is reflected in the sustainability reports of companies.
The project is devoted to combine research based on survey data on CE innovation adoption by Italian firms with sustainability reports from CSRD-compliant companies and it is consistent with the objectives of GRINS, in particular T.12 where it is expected to investigate firms’ adoption dynamics of CE-related innovation based on the implementation of a survey approach.
