"Sustainability performance and competitiveness: an empirical analysis of the italian banking system"

The sector of financial services has developed over the past few years a strong commitment towards sustainability and social responsibility, both in the EU and at the international level. The banking system, in particular, interacts with a wide range of stakeholders (shareholders, clients, employees, suppliers, local communities, institutions, etc), towards whom it has both specific responsibilities and the power to influence them, spurring the adoption of sustainable behaviours. The paper aims at providing and analysing empirical evidence concerning the way in which a socially and environmentally responsible behaviour can affect the performance of a bank. The paper will be based on the intermediate results of a study carried out by IEFE – Bocconi University. In order to achieve its objective, the paper starts by identifying the key-variables by which, on the one hand, the social and environmental performance can be measured and benchmarked in order to assess their effectiveness and, on the other hand, the economic, financial and market-related variables by which competitiveness of a bank can be evaluated.