Introduction

Sustainability and sustainable development are now benchmark concepts in business administration and management. Despite the increasingly widespread familiarity with these concepts, for many companies, especially small and medium-sized ones, it is still unclear the benefit that adopting a sustainable strategy could bring and above all the real extent of the investment required, in financial, organisational, human and relational terms. Moreover, the legal instruments through which such a strategy could be implemented and the tax benefits that could derive from it are sometimes not very well understood, especially in light of the forthcoming regulatory interventions aimed at facilitating such paths, also in connection with the use of EU funds. Taking as its reference, the articulation of research topics of interest for Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, and in particular the topic about the redefinition of development models oriented towards a sustainable and inclusive economic and financial system, the VIS—Valore Impresa Sostenibile (Sustainable Company Value) project set out to develop and implement a self-assessment model for sustainable innovation and change in companies in the cured meat supply chain. This push to turn towards practices of responsibility, sustainability (social, environmental and economic) and respect for ethical-moral values is tangibly present in the founding principles of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. The principles of integral humanism (Maritain, 1936) to which the Social Doctrine of the Church tends (Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, 2004), have represented, and continue to do so, key values of the pedagogical and scientific research action of this University. These core values, strengthened and further actualised by the work of Pope Francis, Laudato si’ (2015), offer spiritual nourishment and encouragement, as well as scientific inspiration, in concentrating one’s energies and skills towards the search for interventions, models, practices, strategies and actions for a humanity able to feel empathy and to grant the other respect, acceptance and care.