Ricerc@Sapienza

International standard setters, policy makers and institutional investors have progressively intensified their focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental Social Governance (ESG) factors, pointing out their importance for companies¿ long-term value creation. At the same time, there has been an exponential increase in implementation of CSR practices and ESG disclosure by companies worldwide, based on the idea that "doing good is good for business". Recently the European Commission placed CSR - aimed at companies, also via Non-financial disclosure (NFD) requirements for large companies - and ESG - targeted to investors and financial institutions - at the heart of its policies aimed at more sustainable path for growth. Even the recent pandemic crisis following the spread of Covid-19 calls for a reconsideration of ESG factors. The pandemic is a rare type of shock to the economy of the world that creates a challenging economic context and uncertainty, in which is important to support vulnerable individuals, all the stakeholders and communities impacted. In this perspective, Covid crisis is expected to create a new sustainability paradigm that deserves a deep understanding.

Despite a growing body of literature on the potential benefits of a more sustainable economic growth, a comprehensive framework encompassing the various facets has not yet been developed and this is the first objective of the proposed multidisciplinary project. The research program entails the development of a database, that includes hand-collected data from the two NFD reports for 2019 and 2020 and qualitative observations directly drawn from interviews and surveys. An empirical investigation will be conducted, as well as an impact assessment comparing various of the ESG reforms for capital markets set forth by the EC action plan. Lastly, we explore the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on issues related to CSR and the three pillars of ESG (Environment, Social and Governance).