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Environmental disclosure and stakeholder engagement via social media: State of the art and potential in public utilities

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  • Davide Giacomini
  • Paola Zola
  • Diego Paredi
  • Mario Mazzoleni

Abstract

The concept of sustainable development has become dominant in the current socio‐economic debate at the global level. In particular, environmental issues have become increasingly central in the action of all organisations: private, public, and hybrid. Analysing a sample of Italian public utilities, we studied the level of disclosure regarding environmental topics via public Facebook pages. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of Web 2.0 on municipally owned public utilities' voluntary disclosure of environmental issues and stakeholder interest in this field. The findings show that the use of Facebook by public utilities to disclose environmental issues is still at an early stage. However, it is constantly growing, especially in the larger companies and in those with mixed public/private ownership.

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  • Davide Giacomini & Paola Zola & Diego Paredi & Mario Mazzoleni, 2020. "Environmental disclosure and stakeholder engagement via social media: State of the art and potential in public utilities," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(4), pages 1552-1564, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:corsem:v:27:y:2020:i:4:p:1552-1564
    DOI: 10.1002/csr.1904
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    3. Nicolo, Giuseppe & Zampone, Giovanni & Sannino, Giuseppe & Tiron-Tudor, Adriana, 2023. "Worldwide evidence of corporate governance influence on ESG disclosure in the utilities sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    4. Zhou, Bo & Ding, Hao, 2023. "How public attention drives corporate environmental protection: Effects and channels," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    5. Bonetti, Lisa & Lai, Alessandro & Stacchezzini, Riccardo, 2023. "Stakeholder engagement in the public utility sector: Evidence from Italian ESG reports," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    6. D'Amore, Gabriella & Landriani, Loris & Lepore, Luigi & Testa, Maria, 2024. "A multi-criteria model for measuring the sustainability orientation of Italian water utilities," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. Ligorio, Lorenzo & Caputo, Fabio & Venturelli, Andrea, 2022. "Sustainability disclosure and reporting by municipally owned water utilities," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    8. Giuseppe Crapa & Maria Elena Latino & Paolo Roma, 2024. "The performance of green communication across social media: Evidence from large‐scale retail industry in Italy," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(1), pages 493-513, January.
    9. Samara López-Ruiz & Nazaret Ibáñez-Rueda & Jorge Guardiola & Francisco González-Gómez, 2023. "Does the Ownership of Water Utilities Influence Water-Saving Advice Provided to Service Users? An Analysis of the Spanish Water Sector," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 37(8), pages 3299-3318, June.
    10. Paolo Esposito & Gianluca Antonucci, 2022. "NGOs, corporate social responsibility and sustainable development trajectories in a new reformative spectrum: ‘New wine in old bottles or old wine in new bottles?’," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(3), pages 609-619, May.
    11. M. Ángeles López‐Cabarcos & Helena Santos‐Rodrigues & Lara Quiñoá‐Piñeiro & Juan Piñeiro‐Chousa, 2023. "How to explain stock returns of utility companies from an environmental, social and corporate governance perspective," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(5), pages 2278-2291, September.
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