Edizioni FrancoAngeli - Last issue of RIVISTA DI STUDI SULLA SOSTENIBILITA' (1/2012)

Editoriale

Fri, 15 Mar 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Sostenibilità finanziaria e finanza sostenibile

Fri, 15 Mar 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Alberto Manelli
Sustainable finance calls for unprecedented attention, in sight of promoting sustainability beyond the original focus on economic, social and environmental development. Much room remains for progress, as shown by the wide range of topics that fit into the sustainability agenda of the "Rio+20" Earth Summit. A key role can be played by the process of financial innovation, far from exhausted. Challenging tasks include a more massive recourse to public-private partnership models (such as JESSICA, JEREMIE and JASMINE) and to the best practices in sustainable finance. The adoption of the Equator Principles and sustainability indexes on a larger scale in lending and investing may significantly contribute to the sustainable - as well as smart and inclusive - growth that "Europe 2020" is aimed at.

Sustainability Issues in Finance

Fri, 15 Mar 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Margherita Mori
Sustainable finance calls for unprecedented attention, in sight of promoting sustainability beyond the original focus on economic, social and environmental development. Much room remains for progress, as shown by the wide range of topics that fit into the sustainability agenda of the "Rio+20" Earth Summit. A key role can be played by the process of financial innovation, far from exhausted. Challenging tasks include a more massive recourse to public-private partnership models (such as JESSICA, JEREMIE and JASMINE) and to the best practices in sustainable finance. The adoption of the Equator Principles and sustainability indexes on a larger scale in lending and investing may significantly contribute to the sustainable - as well as smart and inclusive - growth that "Europe 2020" is aimed at.

Economic evaluation and environmental sustainability: the reuse of waste from olive processing

Fri, 15 Mar 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Roberta Pace
The aim of this article is to illustrate the contribution offered by new European Union financial instruments to assist SMEs to face financial constraints. Starting from theoretical and empirical literature reviews about the main difficulties of SMEs in founding financial sources, the paper introduces the project "JEREMIE" and its financial features, stressing the potential role that financial intermediaries have to play. Furthermore, the work will identify some important characteristics of JEREMIE; characteristics which could potentially help SMEs to overcome financial constraints. Finally, the article proposes a description of the most important JEREMIE projects that have already been started in Italy.

Economic evaluation and environmental sustainability: the reuse of waste from olive processing

Fri, 15 Mar 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Lucia Montanini, Anna Maria Morganti
This work is based on the findings of a research project on olive sector in the provinces of Ascoli Piceno and Fermo. It is proposed to address the economic and environmental issues relating to decisions by the operators, the use of the olive residues to produce electricity (cogeneration combustion) and its impact on sustainable development. The economic analysis and environmental indicators have pointed to the economic, environmental, technical, organizational advantages of the innovative technological projects to use of biomass for energy purposes.

The development of green marketing in the hotel industry: the main results of an exploratory research

Fri, 15 Mar 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Gian Luca Gregori, Valerio Temperini, Andrea Perna
The relevant growth prospects of tourists flows arise the need to pay more attention to the impact of tourism activities on the environment, and this requests tourist businesses to play an active and responsible role in this regard. In this context, the authors consider interesting to analyze the prospects for development of green marketing, as a market approach that can allow the diffusion of an appropriate culture of eco-sustainability. Particularly, the first findings of an exploratory research carried out on a group of hotels in the Marche region are examined, in order to highlight the "state of the art", the aims and issues concerning the realization of eco-sustainable policies.

Towards the "sustainability accounting" in health care: the case of Transfusion Medicine

Fri, 15 Mar 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Alessia D'andrea
The regionalization reforms and corporatization of the Italian health sector have led actors towards the search for accounting tools to monitor economic, social and environmental performances of activities carried out and develop a participatory evaluation approach. The need to understand the extent to which current activities are not sustainable and guide decision-making process, has allowed the development of sustainability accounting practices. This is enabled to evaluate perfor- mances in accordance with the multidimensional objectives (inherent in the mission of health protection) considering economic and financial constraints. The study focuses on the process implemented in the Transfusion Medicine of the Marche Region.

Main financial factors influencing the survival, development and performance of family firms

Fri, 15 Mar 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Oscar Domenichelli
Sometimes the impossibility of employing an adequate level of debt may prevent family firms from developing or reaching high performance; however, they can increase their ability to collect debt finance thanks to personal assets to collateralize or personal guarantees, supplied by family members. Furthermore, agency costs of equity are negligible in family businesses, owing to the insignificant separation among the functions of ownership, control and management and their intra-familial altruistic linkages, but agency costs of debt are high, as family firms are usually small or medium-sized enterprises and, thus, more opportunistic and little transparent. Agency conflicts between majority and minority shareholders prevent family firms, to some extent, from getting equity finance and developing, as non-family and minority shareholders may undergo a loss of personal wealth. The level of debt tends to increase when family firms grow. In the early stages of its development, a family-owned firm usually relies on personal savings and sources of capital provided by friends and relatives; while, in the later stages of its growth, a family-owned firm can more easily employ debt and external equity to finance its development.

An example of sustainable cash management in a group: cash pooling

Fri, 15 Mar 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Martina Vallesi
In a group for creating value and preserving the continuity of the entities, it is necessary to try and find the balance of internal resources: asking, taking and giving according to the different necessities of the companies of an organization. Moreover the available flow of information of a group has to be considered like a lever to obtain better results and to create an autonomous resource system. Concentrating on the high evolution of a company’s treasury management, this article presents a possible example of a sustainable system in term of a group’s cash require- ment: the cash pooling. This agreement, possible in different forms, is related to the sustainability concept for the business continuity, optimizing the group’s cash resources and decreasing the liquidity risk management related to the company’s dynamics in a continuously-changing environment.

Breve presentazione della Fondazione Simone Cesaretti

Fri, 15 Mar 2012 8:00:00 GMT