From Corporate Social Responsibility to Corporate Sustainability: the evolution and the future of the Sustainability Professionals.

Abstract

Companies are increasingly aware of the importance of implementing sustainability, both as an ethical duty and as a factor of competitive advantage. As a result, the role of the Sustainability Professional has emerged with the responsibility of embedding sustainability into corporate strategies and processes. At the same time, the way in which sustainability is executed has changed along with the mutation of the economic, social and environmental context. The underlying theoretical concepts have also evolved from the narrower perspective of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to the more holistic approach of Corporate Sustainability (CS). The literature review highlighted how little has been written about changes in the responsibilities of Sustainability Professionals in the transition from CSR to CS. The ambition of this thesis is to contribute to cover the research gap by studying this evolution. The analysis also investigates whether the figure responsible for implementing sustainability will become even more central in the company or it will no longer be necessary thanks to the integration of sustainability into every organizational area. This exploratory research analyzes the developments of this role with in-depth interviews with Sustainability Professionals from a specific community: Sustainability Makers-the Professional Network. This network is the first Italian association of Sustainability Professionals that promotes the standing of the profession. The final objective is to identify common patterns of the evolution of the role from a professional perspective, in order to understand if this figure will still remain a relevant actor in the implementation of sustainability in corporations.