This paper aims to examine the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on the regional progression toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the lens of the adoption of 2030 Agenda by firms from different Italian regions.
Mixed methods were adopted. First, a content analysis was performed on 330 nonfinancial declarations released in the 2019–2021 period by a sample of 110 Italian listed companies from different regional macroareas. Second, regression analyses were run to test the impact of regional localization of businesses on SDGs adoption over pre-/during/post-COVID era.
The regional localization of businesses does not affect the SDGs adoption in the pre-COVID-19 era because Italian firms mainly address social goals. Instead, SDGs adoption is affected by regional localization of businesses both during and post-COVID-19 age, when Northern firms prioritize economic and social goals, whereas Southern firms shift from social to environmental goals.
This study fills the need of considering the subnational specificities in literature on sustainable development by capturing connections between firms, belonging territory, SDGs and COVID-19 crisis.
