Exploring the Effectiveness of Sustainability Reporting Standards: Evidence from Italy's Fashion Benefit Corporations.

This thesis focuses on Benefit Corporations in the Italian apparel, accessories, and footwear industry while examining the evolving landscape of sustainability reporting standards and the emergence of hybrid organizations. The development of sustainability reporting standards is covered in detail in Chapter 1. The chapter starts with an overview of the institutional theory and organizational isomorphism and the shift from shared value to purpose driven businesses. Then there is a chronological progression of sustainability reporting standards divided into three discrete time intervals. After the historical look, there will be an analysis of the main standards such as SASB, TCFD, UNGC and GRI. The examination of these standards will end with a final comparison between them. Chapter 2 investigates the advent of hybrid companies. This section emphasizes the transition from conventional profit-driven businesses to entities with a purpose, with a particular focus on the idea of hybrid organizations. This chapter also provides an explanation of BCorps and "Società Benefit," comparing their traits and global reach, with a focus on their existence in the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Australia, China and Japan. Moreover, a legal comparison between Italy and the United States point of view about benefit corporations is presented. At conclusion of the chapter are exposed two cases of lawsuits that have involved two benefit corporations, respectively Lemonade Inc. and ENI S.p.A.. In Chapter 3 there is a presentation of the National research made on all the “società benefit” present in Italy (3.619), that had the objective to collect all the purposes of common benefit and analyze their materiality and overlap score compared to the SASB+ standards. In this section all the process that the team had to face in order to achieve the final result is explained in detail to provide a comprehensive view of the work and its relevance. In Chapter 4 the focus is on benefit corporations in the Italian Apparel, Accessories and Footwear industry. The chapter starts by making an industry overview of the Italian fashion sector, highlighting the sector's commitment to sustainability, the challenges it has to face and its impact. Then the analysis puts its focus specifically on the benefit corporations belonging to this sector, looking at their purpose of common benefit considering declared versus emergent strategies, based on evidence from sustainability impact reports. Through these four chapters, the thesis provides a comprehensive examination of sustainability reporting standards, the rise of hybrid organizations and the specific implementation and impact of Benefit Corporations within the apparel, accessories and footwear industry in Italy. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the intersection between sustainability, corporate governance and industry-specific practices. Also, thanks to this research, which constitutes a base, it is possible to make further research through statistical analysis in order to assess whether there is a correlation between the status of benefit corporation and the financial result, which in this work is only shown through visual representation.