Cooperatives and sustainable innovation: The new challenges set by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Journal title CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Author/s Nora Annesi, Patrizia Gragnani, Massimo Battaglia, Marco Frey
Publishing Year 2021 Issue 2020/2 Language Italian
Pages 34 P. 77-110 File size 0 KB
DOI 10.3280/cgrds2-2020oa10569
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This study focuses on the issue of sustainable innovation, in particular, by exploring whether cooperatives, given their peculiar nature of business and governance, are capable of stimulating and promoting innovation that embraces the three dimensions of sustainability: social, environmental and economical. To this end, a representative sample of innovative initiatives undertaken by Italian consumer cooperatives was analyzed.Reading the initiatives with the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 5Ps, it emerges not only that cooperatives are well suited to stimulating and promoting sustainable innovation, but that with the publication of the 2030 Agenda in 2015, their innovation has been strengthened especially in the social and economic fields, as well as the environmental field. Italian cooperatives, therefore, seem capable of responding to the new challenges of sustainability. The study is significant from an academic point of view and sees the union of the themes of cooperatives and sustainable innovation as an element of novelty.

Keywords: sustainable innovation, cooperatives, SDG, 2030 Agenda, CSR

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Nora Annesi, Patrizia Gragnani, Massimo Battaglia, Marco Frey, Le cooperative e l’innovazione sostenibile: le nuove sfide dell’Agenda 2030 in "CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT STUDIES" 2/2020, pp 77-110, DOI: 10.3280/cgrds2-2020oa10569