Emanuele Pizzurno

This paper investigated the nexus between sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) initiatives and exceptional profitability in high-performing companies. To this aim, employing a multiple comparative case study methodology, we analyzed 10 cases that excel in both return-on-sales (ROS) compared to industry medians and are actively engaged in SOI initiatives with public evidence. The findings of the study are categorized into internal and external factors affecting company performance, shedding light on managerial practices, organizational culture, and industry-specific variables. From a managerial standpoint, this paper offers valuable insights for managers seeking to balance between sustainable practices, encompassing multiple social and environmental aspects of corporate initiatives, while optimizing economic performance. The paper’s originality lies in its contribution to a deeper understanding of the factors influencing the profitability of SOI and their implications for company management. This exploratory research seeks to expand the knowledge of the relationship between SOI and financial performance (FP), providing a foundation for future research in this domain.

The concept of circular public procurement has been developed as an approach that extends the green public procurement one, recognising the relevance of circular economy-related dimensions in green public procurement procedures, such as resource reuse and efficiency. This notwithstanding, the circular economy criteria are not made completely explicit in the current green public procurement procedures in the Italian setting. To grasp how a more circular economy can be promoted in Italian green public procurement procedures, the case study of Consip, the major centralised purchasing centre for the most relevant public tenders and supplies in Italy, was conducted. Through a content analysis on secondary sources of information and interviews with experts involved in these procedures, the paper highlights the role played by intermediaries to support supplier companies to establish a relationship with major public purchasing centres and to overcome potential barriers when deciding to approach a green public procurement procedure.

Logistics has traditionally been seen as a poorly innovative sector and an ancillary business function aimed at reducing costs, and with severe impacts on the environment due to the emissions generated by the logistics processes. However, with new services, logistics is today becoming a strategic source of competitive advantage for organizations. In this evolution, it is unclear how innovation has driven the rise of logistics as a strategic function, and the role of innovation in the logistics sector—especially in the light of understanding the implications for sustainability. In this chapter, a Systematic Literature Review on the current state of the art of the debate around innovation management in the logistics sector is presented, with special emphasis on the scientific literature related to European countries. To shed light on this topic, we combine the Systematic Literature Review with bibliometric tools, and we identify approaches and areas where innovation in logistics has been introduced. Sustainability-oriented innovation emerges as a key topic, along with technology, transport-related innovations, and the customer’s role within innovation processes.

The urgency for innovative solutions to reduce the human footprint on the environment and to reduce poverty and other social issues is globally acclaimed. This movement towards a radical shift is involving in different modes all relevant actors from the whole society, from policy makers to managers from citizens to scientific community. Despite this premise, we are all still experiencing a slow and incremental stop-and-go, with partial solutions and steps forward, as well steps behind and new emerging issues originated by questionable human actions (as the recent Coronavirus crisis). The scientific community has provided public evidence of this scenario and published a number of papers providing explanations and alternatives and in-depth researches on the phenomena, always involving companies in being part of the solution. However, the consciousness of the consequences and a large variety of available solutions seem to be not enough if all the social and environmental troubles are still open, as demonstrated by the fact that these are central in the 2030 SDGs agenda of the United Nations. A missing piece seems to be a widespread adoption of sustainable practices by the companies and this paper aims to take a step forward in this direction, highlining how companies can be sustainable and, at the same time, high-performing.