THE MATERIALITY ANALYSIS IN THE SUSTAINABILITY REPORT FOR LOCAL AND MUNICIPAL ENTITIES

Nowadays, creating value for stakeholders is a fundamental issue for any type of economic activity. Until the mid-1980s, however, the only goal that management was requested to achieve was the generation of a profit that would have rewarded the shareholder investment. In this perspective, the shareholders were considered as the only relevant stakeholders and the performance of the activity was aimed solely at satisfying their interests. With the introduction of what are generally called "Theories of creating value for stakeholders", business players began to consider new objectives that management must achieve in carrying out company activities. Shareholders were no longer the only relevant stakeholder category. The evolution of this theory has led, over time, to a shift of the company activity's focus: not only the role of stakeholders has passed from marginal to central, but it has also been reconsidered as one of the bases on which a company can build its competitive advantage. In this paper, after having deepened the topics just presented, we will analyse the tool through which, today, companies communicate and report to stakeholders about their activities and their results achieved in the environmental, social and workplace fields: the sustainability report. We will consider its legislative evolution and latest implications about that. Then, we will look at its most famous redaction guidelines and at a real case about sustainability report redaction process, with a focus on materiality analysis.