Quota one thousand ever closer for Italian benefit companies. In April there were 926, almost double compared to a year earlier (511 as of March 31, 2020 – source Infocamere). There is no region of the peninsula that does not present at least one productive reality characterized by the legal form introduced by the law that came into force in 2016 and which identifies the companies that pursue profit and, at the same time, the common good. In Lombardy there are 316, on the podium also Lazio (117) and Emilia Romagna (94). In the rear Molise and Valle d’Aosta (1), Basilicata (4) and Calabria (5).
“The numbers achieved by benefit companies in Italy – explains Mauro Del Barba, president of Assobenefit – are so significant that they highlight the doubling year over year, but a careful analysis of the historian, starting from 2016, shows that growth is a constant. We started with the adoption of this legal form by companies that considered it a real tailor-made suit, with the transformation of two companies a week. The following year there were 200 realities throughout the peninsula, thanks to a second wave, the result of an important awareness campaign ».
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Jean-Daniel Regna-Gladin, partner of the Pedersoli law firm and expert in the sector of the same opinion: «That of benefit companies is an increasingly important phenomenon. Virtually every day there is an announcement of a company that has acquired this new legal status. Sometimes they are smaller realities, others even of significant dimensions ».
Benefit companies and obligations
The 2016 law made Italy the first state in the world to have introduced companies “which, in the exercise of an economic activity – reads the text of the law – in addition to the purpose of dividing the profits, pursue one or more beneficial purposes common and operate responsibly “. The benefit company must indicate, as part of its corporate purpose, the specific purposes of common benefit it intends to pursue and is required to prepare a report on the progress made every year, to be attached to the financial statements.
The report includes, among other things, a description of the objectives, methods and actions implemented by the directors for the pursuit of the common good and any circumstances that prevented or slowed it down.