The sustainability objectives of SMEs

Strategic reflections and defined roadmaps

by Gianni Malerba

Today all companies are undergoing a "gentle push" towards achieving a sustainable businesscompetitive advantage

We are starting to talk about sustainability, and subsequently sustainable developmentinternational collaboration

If already in that period the emphasis was on the environmental problems connected to development and their respective social and economic consequences, today the link between sustainability andESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) activities must be underlined even more so

Sustainability as a source of competitive advantage

Connecting the terms "business", or more specifically SMEs Italian, and "sustainability", means conceiving the latter as the development of lasting value for the company and for all stakeholders in the long term, representing it as a competitive advantagean urgent necessity

But what do we mean when we talk about competitive advantage?

• Better opportunities for access to credit. In fact, credit institutions will pay ever more attention to evidence of sustainability. We talked about it in our article The advantages of sustainability for SMEs
• Creation of a supply chain that contributes to the creation of a sustainable business linked to the human and environmental cost of the entire journey of a product through network;
• Improvement of corporate reputation or the set of perceptions, evaluations and expectations of stakeholders with respect to the company's past and future actions. One of the ideas is present in our article The levers of competitiveness of companies
• Greater attractiveness for investors generated by an increase in funds available to invest in company growth.

We instead talk about necessity cannot be postponed because:

• The legislative provisions, which today concern large and medium-sized enterprises, will be increasingly extended over time to SMEs as well. A good starting point is offered by our article Sustainability reporting and SMEs
• There are growing requests aimed at guaranteeing a sustainable production chain from upstream to downstream
• A managerial culture is necessary enlightened;
• It is necessary to guarantee the so-called business continuity, i.e. the survival of the company, by identifying possible threats, evaluating what the consequences could be and identifying the most appropriate countermeasures to cancel them or reduce them to a minimum.

Sustainable companies as synonymous with solidity

Cerved Rating Agencyfive times lower risk of default

This statistic, taken from the second edition of theESG Connect research

These in particular include: the achievement of the United Nations' sustainable development goals (17 SDGs), improving the attractiveness of talent and capital, encouraging communication of sustainability to its stakeholdersinnovative capacity of the companyStakeholder Engagement

The challenge of sustainability

The paradigm shift, from a perspective of maximizing value for shareholders, seen in the past as the true mission of managers, to a perspective that puts the well-being of stakeholders at the center as corporate objective, places companies faced with an urgent change

• Economic responsibility
• Social responsibility
• Environmental responsibility

  Sustainability is therefore a challenge for the future of companies because a company that does not recognize its value will not be able to fit in and survive in a global context

  • Considering ESG issues as relevant and satisfy the needs of its stakeholders;
  • Map, consider and address the risks characterizing the company's activity;
  • Identify, prevent and mitigate possible negative effects
  • Plan socially responsible management that looks with interest to the future;
  • Create a shared lasting value and consolidate business continuity.

  In conclusion, the best way forward is to start a strategic reflection by defining the sustainability and the roadmap to undertake to reach them, starting from one's own vocations, from the expectations of stakeholders and trying to enhance what has already been done.

  This path often encounters obstacles and in a context where corporate sustainability has become one of the topics of greatest interest, Malerba&Partners follows companies and SMEs along the entire path to provide them with the tools necessary to face it successfully. From here the strategic partnership with EFTILIA was born