Benefit companies with a high impact on communities, territories and supply chains

They have a strong sense of belonging and connection to the territory, an organisational awareness, an orientation towards fairness and quality of work. And a vocation to spread their model, which aims at the common good to the entire supply chain and sector. These are the hallmarks of benefit societies: in addition to the goal of profit, they have a commitment - written in black and white in their bylaws - to bring, precisely, a common benefit. It is not a slogan but an identikit outlined with scientific precision by the second part of the 'National research on benefit companies' carried out by Nativa, Research department of Intesa Sanpaolo, Infocamere, Department of Economic and Business Sciences of the University of Padua, Brindisi-Taranto Chamber of Commerce and Assobenefit. The results, which Il Sole 24 Ore is able to anticipate, will be released on 30 September.

Eight years after the law that introduced them into the Italian legal system for the first time, the study X-rayed the statutes of all benefit societies (3,619 at the end of 2023), extrapolating 18,618 specific purposes of common benefit. So many are the commitments that SBs have voluntarily made to their people and communities, the natural and business environment in which they are embedded. An average of 5.8 purposes for each. "This is a significant starting point," emphasises Paolo Gubitta, professor of organisation at the University of Padua, "which outlines the features of this avant-garde ecosystem: SBs represent just 0.12% of the total number of companies in our country (and 1.7% of the large ones), but they intend to make their mark with an emerging entrepreneurial vocation that looks beyond profit". Gubitta calls it 'a new posture that makes the legacy left by Adriano Olivetti still relevant, but updates it with the spirit of the 21st century and creates a reference model'.

The mapping was carried out using the international standard Sustainability accounting standards board (Sasb), which is recognised as one of the most comprehensive models for classifying the most relevant environmental, social and governance issues in relation to the financial risks associated with different sectors. Three more specific categories were added to the categories provided, creating a database called Sasb+. "If we group the purposes according to the ESG approach," points out Paolo Di Cesare, co-founder of Nativa, the first benefit company in our country and in Europe, "there emerges a particular focus on activities that produce a positive social impact. A figure that expresses the soul of SBs, a beacon of the avant-garde that aims at the common good by impacting the territory to which it belongs'. In fact, almost 10 thousand commitments (51.9% of the total) refer to the S of the acronym. In the lead is the high focus on human rights, employee involvement, respect for diversity and inclusion. This is followed by environmental goals (25.6% of the total). Here the design and management of the product life cycle and operational efficiency stand out. This figure - reads the research - is due to the fact that the majority of Italian SBs belong to the service sector, areas in which environmental impacts are less directly controllable. Instead, environmental goals exceed 30% in the resource processing, food and consumer goods sectors. G governance accounts for 22.1% of the commitments crystallised in the statutes. They focus mainly on the dissemination of the benefits model, resilience of the business model and professional ethics.

Nearly eight out of 10 benefit companies (78%), have also adopted at least one specific purpose of material common benefit, i.e. assessed against its relevance to the sector in which they operate. To maximise the positive impact on all stakeholders and reduce exposure to financial risks. The range goes from 75.5% for micro companies to 87.7% for large, more structured ones. And overall, 17% of SBs have more than four material purposes. "This data,' notes Gubitta, 'puts the benefit companies at an advantage also in view of the transposition of the EU Csdr (Corporate social sustainability directive) and Csdd (Corporate sustainability due diligence directive), which place a strong emphasis on the principles of sustainability not only of the individual company but of the entire supply chain'. The study, concludes Di Cesare, 'shows a historic opportunity that must be seized to spread this innovative model, an evolution of modern capitalism. The signal is not going unnoticed, as confirmed by the initiatives at local level that are gaining ground to encourage further development of benefit companies in Italy'.