Title: Communicating sustainability: large companies and their web-based approach

Authors: Fabrizio Baldassarre; Raffaele Campo

Addresses: Department of Economics, Management and Business Law, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Largo Abbazia S. Scolastica, 53, Bari, Italy ' Department of Economics, Management and Business Law, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Largo Abbazia S. Scolastica, 53, Bari, Italy

Abstract: Sustainability is becoming an increasingly popular concept and also an impelling necessity. The world of business is not excluded from the responsibility of acting sustainably. The authors employ content analysis to analyse six different sectors (food, fashion, furnishings, oil and its derivatives, fuel and electricity, production and trade of metallurgic products, and production and trade of chemical products), for a total of 30 large companies (both b2c and b2b), in order to highlight how they communicate sustainability and employ it as a marketing tool. The results highlight that large companies show are interested in divulging their sustainable initiatives, Moreover, the energy and metallurgic sectors publish their information more fully, while fashion firms communicate sustainability less.

Keywords: sustainability communication; marketing; web communications; large companies; sustainable development; content analysis; food industry; fashion industry; furnishings industry; oil industry; fuel industry; electricity industry; metallurgy industry; chemical products.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSE.2016.077414

International Journal of Sustainable Economy, 2016 Vol.8 No.3, pp.237 - 251

Received: 03 Nov 2015
Accepted: 22 Feb 2016
Published online: 29 Jun 2016 *

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