Sustainability performance and Board of Directors: Evidence from Italian listed companies - Abstract Conference Proceeding

The aim of this research is to shed light on the relationship between the corporate governance structure and sustainability performance in Italian listed companies. Although the mechanism of corporate governance – particularly the board of directors (BoD) – sustainability practices and corporate sustainability performance have been receiving considerable attention in recent years, is not clear which attributes of the BoD promote or hinder the adoption of sustainable practices, and consequently improve or impair related performance (Post et al., 2011; Hussein et al., 2016, 2018; Cucari et al., 2018; Naciti, 2019; Naciti et al., 2021). In this regard, some scholars (Naciti, 2019; Cucari et al., 2018) have pointed out that this is particularly true of the Italian context in which the literature on boardroom composition and sustainability performance is still scarce. The Italian context appears interesting for conducting this research. According to Ernest & Young (2023), in Italy, over 80% of listed companies have developed a sustainability plan, and 74% have structured a committee or other governance body that reports to the BoD on sustainability issues, testifying to the central importance that the issue is assuming. In this sense, examining which attributes of corporate governance affects the sustainability performance of Italian-listed firms could be helpful, as these companies appear to be particularly committed to integrating sustainability into their businesses. To fill the literature gap, the paper aims to answer the following research question: Which attributes of the board of directors positively affect sustainability performance? This study provides new insights into the current debate on the role of BoD, and in particular their efficacy in terms of enabling a firm to improve its social and environmental performance, which is currently a question of considerable