Why do companies go green? An empirical analysis of threats and opportunities

Abstract

Nowadays Sustainability is an increasingly popular, although evolving, concept. There are different and sometimes conflicting viewpoints and theories trying to assess the role that sustainability plays in the business environment. Assuming a managerial perspective focusing on pros and cons, this work starts form the question “Why do companies go green?” to conduct an analysis of papers dealing with trade-offs in sustainability adoption, aiming to provide a comprehensive view of the main issues identified by the theory. A final comparison with the information disclosed in the SEC filings of a sample of companies in the automotive sector tries to test empirically the theory developed.