The conference, which was held at the School of Economics and Management of the University of Turin and organised by the Department of Management and the Center for ‘Regolazione, etica e società’ (RES), aimed at discussing ELI’s Guidance on Company Capital and Financial Accounting for Corporate Sustainability, which was presented by Co-Reporters Yuri Biondi and Corrado Malberti, with academics and other professionals. The Guidance draws upon the common sense assumption that Environmental Social Governance (ESG) goals can only be effectively pursued by financially robust companies; therefore, sustainability for nature and society presupposes corporate financial sustainability first and foremost. Against this background, the Guidance offers a number of recommendations addressed to directors, auditors, policy- and law-makers, with the general intention of better regulating the distribution of corporate profits with a view to preventing fictitious and excess distributions and enhancing corporate resilience by financial planning, reserve provisioning and retained earnings.

To achieve responsible corporate governance for sustainable business, the Guidance proposes a series of instruments dealing with financial accounting, company capital management, and company and business law and regulation. Conference participants discussed these instruments from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives (from financial accounting and business economics (Vera Palea and Donatella Busso) to company law, including corporate crisis prevention (Maria Di Sarli), and tax law (Mario Grandinetti)).