Published date: October 19, 2021
The benefit corporation as a model for agrifood: an opportunity to pursue social and environmental goals alongside economic ones.
The benefit company is a qualification introduced by the 2016 Stability Law (art. 1, paragraphs 376-384, law no. 208 of 28 December 2015). With this model, companies can pursue traditional profit objectives together with social and environmental objectives.
This is not a commitment "external" to the core business of the company or a mere management of environmental and social externalities through corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches. It is a rigorous and formal approach, through which an organization institutionalizes in its statutes the social and environmental objectives that it intends to achieve and that are at the heart of its business model.
A benefit company, therefore, is called to be responsible, that is, to carefully manage its impacts, its externalities, on the environment and on society, but also to be a generator of social value, through clear and far-sighted planning of its "common benefit activities".
An example of how a benefit corporation defines its goals and how to achieve them is Boniviri’s Impact Map .
Benefit corporations are also required to report on their performance in relation to the results achieved and their impacts.
