Environmental strategies and performance measurement: the Italian way

This paper report the results of a literature review on the environmental strategies and environmental performance and an empirical investigation into the practices of Italian companies. We advance a framework about the strategic management of environmental issues. This framework is used for the empirical investigation, based on a content analysis of annual reports and social reports of a sample of large listed firms. Our findings show major differences among companies in sensitive, manufacturing/service and financial sectors in terms of: integration of environmental issues into the strategic process; measurement of environmental performance; relevant key value drivers and performance indicators. Specifically, we offer some relevant insights on: the overlooked relation between environmental performance and financial effects; the absence or low number of indicators about competitive advantages; the predominant use of environmental qualitative and/or non financial measures. The study also shows that there is a lack of consideration paid to the relationship between environmental strategies and environmental performance and there is an high variability and a limited standardization in environmental practices. As a consequence, the comparability of environmental performance is very low. Furthermore, integrating theoretical and empirical findings, we suggests some implications to improve environmental performance practices.