(Finance) – Highlight and deepen the relationship and bidirectional movement between sustainability issues and corporate governance – in their conceptual and functional dimension -, with a view to rethinking and improving the adequate “organisational, administrative and accounting” (OAC) structures and thus strengthening the organisation’s connections with the stakeholders, and above all with the banking and credit system: it is the objective of the document “Sustainability, governance and finance. Impact of ESG with particular reference to SMEs”, published by the National Council of Accountants and carried out by its “Governance and Finance” Commission, established in the sustainable development delegation area.
The document is divided into three partsi: the first is dedicated to the description of the economic and regulatory context of reference; the second delves into the implications of ESG factors and the consequences of the impacts of sustainability phenomena on corporate governance and adequate corporate structures; the third focuses on the relationship between sustainability and corporate finance in the current scenario of the banking and credit system, in which environmental, social, governance (ESG) assessment now plays an essential role in understanding economic and financial solidity and the long-term prospects of organizations. The reasoning starts from the consideration of the centrality of “sustainability” in the consolidation of business continuity and in the evaluation of the company and then moves on to the close link between the principles of correct administration, of which the OAC structures represent the main explanation, and the ESG factors in context of European and national regulatory development processes in sustainable economics and digitalisation of company operations, with particular reference to medium and small-sized companies.
The interpretation of ESG phenomena is today essential for legislators, governments, regulators and capital providers, for both political-institutional and economic-social reasons. The coherence of the OAC structures with recent developments in the finance sector – also due to a series of indirect pressure mechanisms, introduced into the legal system and the economic system from multiple sources (among others, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan , the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) – is crucial for the meeting between the demand and supply of capital, which is characterized by a growing demand for requirements suitable for sustainable development of the company and for forms management innovations, aimed at increasing the reliability of the organization.
Furthermore, according to the president of the National Council of Accountants, Elbano de Nuccio, and the National Councilor delegated for Sustainable Development, Gianluca Galletti, “we should all – professionals, businesses, legislators – feel obliged not only to respect the law, but to reflect on its values, on the value of sustainability. The initiative of accountants on these issues, as they are equipped with the necessary technical-professional skills as company consultants, must be robust and widespread. It must be increasingly informed, aware and aimed at “public opinion”, such as to push everyone (the legislator first and foremost) to take responsibility for scientifically mandatory choices, even when politically inconvenient or uncertain”. “While we understand the doubts of some in following innovative paths – they add – it is necessary to anticipate what we believe is the natural or predictable outcome of the processes we have before our eyes.
The President of the “Governance and Finance” Study Commission, Paolo Vernero, underlines how the document “aimed at providing some ideas for the conceptual and cultural leap that is required of accountants and their clients, trying to provide some drivers that must guide the change and transition towards sustainability, fully understanding the origins, development, the regulatory and self-regulation context, as well as the related best practices that are forcefully emerging. In an ideal path of the company towards sustainability, we focused, on the one hand, on the evolution of governance, of the principles of correct administration and of the related organizational structures, according to their different declinations, without neglecting those elements, such as digitalisation, which represent tools closely connected to the evolution of the modern business and to ESG factors in particular; don the other, the relationships between the world of finance and the issues posed by sustainability and related compliance on the subject were examined”.