The role of companies towards resilience of cities and regions in the perspective of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a call for action that addresses global challenges of society and promote initiatives of social and environmental protection. The concept of resilience is fundamentally rooted in the framework of the SDGs and it is particularly important in a scenario of evolving global environmental and social concerns. Companies specifically plays a significant role when it comes to the resilience of communities, cities, and regions. Although scholars agree that companies are critical in contributing to resilience of territories, unresolved questions remain about what practices they can implement and what are the main areas of their intervention. After a review of extant literature, on the one hand, we analyze social, environmental, and sustainability (SES) reports of the 100 most polluting companies in order to identify how SDGs are implemented in their activities and communicated in their non-financial disclosure. On the other, semi-structured interviews with local institutions contribute to the understanding of what is expected by policy makers and what companies are effectively doing towards resilience. In third place, we discuss an analytical frame that encompasses the different types of initiatives aimed at resilience improvement that companies can take. This study provides insights on the contribution of companies to resilience of cities and regions, advancing literature on the link between business and resilience and SDGs, and offering a new frame that can help companies to foster territories’ resilience. Greater attention to the disclosures on the impacts of companies on resilience is a starting point for action toward the achievement of SDGs.