=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3293/paper19
|storemode=property
|title=Corporate Social Responsibility Approach at Energy Issue: From Linear to Circular Economic Model
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3293/paper19.pdf
|volume=Vol-3293
|authors=Immacolata Viola,Gian Paolo Cesaretti,Debora Scarpato
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/haicta/ViolaCS22
}}
==Corporate Social Responsibility Approach at Energy Issue: From Linear to Circular Economic Model==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3293/paper19.pdf
Corporate Social Responsibility Approach at Energy Issue: From
Linear to Circular Economic Model
Immacolata Viola 1, Gian Paolo Cesaretti 1 and Debora Scarpato 2
1
Fondazione Simone Cesaretti, Via Rubinacci 23, Cercola, Campania, Italy
2
Università degli Studi di Napoli “Parthenope”, Via Amm. F. Acton, 38, Napoli, Italy
Abstract
Energy Security, Energy Safety and Energy Resilience constitute the three components of
Energy Issue to which various stakeholders of Territorial Systems must give adequate answers
through new decision-making models. In this paper the proposal of a corporate circular
economic model is put forward as a corporate strategy based on three lines of action, strictly
interconnected: improvement of demand for energy resources; choice of products and
processes aimed at minimizing negative externalities deriving from possible use of fossil
energy sources; implementation of Energy Resilience strategies. This model also contributes
to overcoming dilemma between competitiveness and Society's needs.
Keywords 1
Corporate Social Responsibility, Energy Issue, Circular Economic approach at Energy Issue,
Food sustainability.
1. Unsustainability of Current Global Development Model
Today, the pursuit of development objectives, in a context of variable geometry globalization and
geopolitical competition, rather than through complete multilateralism, pushes towards the
implementation of "dumping strategies" in production and consumption models.
To this is added, very often, the inadequacy of Knowledge System (research-training) in offering
“innovative transferable” solutions to territorial systems and, to the no-profit Institutions, to set up
effective Advocacy strategies in favor of new decision-making models.
The resulting combination constitutes the origin of unsustainability of current global development
model (environmental, economic, social level) denounced in 2015 by United Nations (see Figure 1).
Proceedings of HAICTA 2022, September 22–25, 2022, Athens, Greece
EMAIL: immacolata.viola@gmail.com (A. 1); gp.cesaretti@gmail.com (A. 2); dscarpato.uniparthenope@gmail.com (A. 3)
ORCID: 0000-0002-5476-3199 (A. 1); 0000-0002-4988-1449 (A. 2); 0000-0002-0099-2498 (A. 3)
©️ 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
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Figure 1: Current development model and capital stock. Source: our elaboration
That is, the Society's inability to pursue an optimal balance between “Material living conditions”
and “Quality of Life”; overcome all forms of inequality; knowing how to invest in the future, in the
interest of the generations that will follow.
As clearly highlighted in the “How's Life? Measuring Well-being”, of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2011), the fundamental condition of Sustainability
is represented by the ability to preserve the different types of capital over time and space: economic,
human, social and natural. The evolution over time and space of different capital stocks depends, in
particular, on the way in which, today, decisions are made capable of influencing the size, availability
and quality of these stocks in the future.
Hence the need to set up a new Development Model, where stakeholders are called upon to ensure
the availability, quality and access to four capital stocks and, in particular, to energy resources.
In this context, the issue of Corporate Social Responsibility will assume a central role.
2. Energy Issue
With term Energy Question we can indicate the “persistent inadequacy” of the response methods of
the current Development model to satisfy the “energy demand”.
The current governance of energy demand, in fact, has a transversal impact on all dimensions of
sustainability, economic, social, environmental, institutional, thus putting at risk the maintenance of a
balanced well-being, between material living conditions and quality of life; equally distributed between
social classes and territories; available for future generations. More specifically, the pursuit of the 17
objectives set by the United Nations Global Agenda signed in 2015, Agenda 2030, is jeopardized.
Today, this inadequacy of methods of responding to energy demand is manifested both with respect
to Energy Security (current availability, degree of access to energy sources, level of the net positive
balance between the reproduction rate and the utilization rate of energy sources: forests and woods);
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both with respect to Energy Safety (level of negative externalities related to the use of fossil fuels); and
with respect to Energy Resilience (compensation actions, energy saving, energy efficiency, investments
in renewables).
In summary, firms must guarantee energy sustainability, that is, the ability of energy resources to
sustain over time a given state of well-being balanced between material living conditions and quality
of life; equally distributed between social classes and territories; avalable for future generations.
3. Corporate Social Responsibility Approach at Energy Issue
European Commission has defined corporate social responsibility, CSR, as “the voluntary
integration of the social and ecological concerns of firms in their economic operations and in their
relations with interested parties” (Comm. 2001 - 366).
A strategic approach to issue of corporate social responsibility is therefore fundamental for
overcoming dilemma between competitiveness and Society's needs.
In other words, the competitiveness of firms cannot be pursued through dumping strategies capable
of jeopardizing the availability, quality and access to four stocks of capital and therefore the Well-being
Sustainability in subsequent production cycles.
With respect to Energy Issue, this means that firms must review their production and marketing
strategies in order to offer an adequate response to the energy demand in terms of Energy Security,
Energy Safety and Energy Resilience (see Figure 2).
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Figure 2: Corporate Social Responsibility approach at Energy Issue. Source: our elaboration
To this end, the organizational model of businesses must be changed, passing from a linear economic
model to a circular economic model.
4. From Linear to Circular Economic Model
The model proposed by Pierce and Turner, known as the “Circular Economic System”, highlights
how firms and households, are the fundamental stakeholders on whose decisions sustainability
conditions of the Economic Systems depend. Conditions deriving from the choices made in terms of
capital stock; relating to products and production and marketing processes; and related to resilience
strategies. But, above all, the model highlights the circularity, or rather, the close interconnection that
exists between the various decisions of firms to ensure the sustainability of the economic system.
In other words, it involves implementing three strategic business lines aimed at: modifying the
demand for energy resources (Energy safety strategy); the choice of products, production processes and
marketing strategies aimed at minimizing the negative externalities generated by a possible use of fossil
energy (Energy security and energy safety); the level of implementation of resilience actions
(compensation of any negative externalities, renewable energy; energy saving; energy efficiency).
Figure 3 presents a reinterpretation of Pearce-Turner model applied to the management of energy
resources by firms. It highlights the fundamental role that firms must play simultaneously with respect
to the three conditions of the Energy Issue and the circularity of this responsible approach.
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Figure 3: Corporate Circular Economic Model and Energy Issue. Source: our elaboration
In other words, a corporate social responsibility approach at energy issue is based on the recognition
that the more the firms are able to interconnect the three conditions of energy issue, the better it will be
able to improve its competitive positioning and to satisfy well-being needs of society.
5. Food System and Energy Issue
Currently, agri-food firms pursue their fundamental objective of competitive positioning, very often
regardless of awareness that they too, like all other stakeholders of an economic system, must contribute
to the goal of implementing a sustainable development strategy.
In fact, the search for their competitiveness, in the face of a “variable geometry globalization” has
very often been resolved by focusing on economic, social and environmental dumping strategies, rather
than on decision-making models aimed at offering products and services capable of responding, in a
responsible way (socially and environmentally), increasingly to the well-being needs of Society.
The lack, on the demand side, for countless reasons, of a System Approach to Quality (understood
in its broadest sense) has led to the search for the satisfaction of needs through economically accessible
products and services, but a source of negative externalities of nature, social and environmental.
A corporate social responsibility approach at energy issue serves to allow companies the overcoming
dilemma between competitiveness and Society's needs.
Today consumers, in fact, are very sensitive and attentive to everything that revolves around the
theme of sustainability.
It is therefore essential for firms to consider factors that affect purchasing decisions.
In particular, they must invest in the compatibility between satisfying the Society's demands on the
subject of “Energy and Sustainable Development” and the ability to know how to compete in a
globalized system, avoiding dumping strategies.
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The change of economic paradigm, from linear to circular system, is now in the opinion of many
scholars, as the best form of social innovation, capable of overcoming this dilemma.
The transition of agri-food firms to a circular economic system allows for an improvement in the
competitiveness index (ie the relationship between “value perceived by families and the market price
paid”); contribute to environmental sustainability, protecting the three functions of the environment;
contribute to social sustainability, with positive impacts on health, income and employment.
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