Sustainability in the personal luxury goods industry: an analysis of the impact of ESG performance on profitability

In recent decades, sustainable development has become increasingly important, and businesses play a critical role in achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals outlined in the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda. This thesis focuses on sustainability in the personal luxury goods industry and it seeks to determine whether good ESG performance can have a positive impact on profitability. Starting with an analysis of the concept of sustainability, it explores its interactions with the corporate world, specifically by introducing the concepts of corporate social responsibility and ESG. The work then analyzes the industry and its trends, focusing on the interactions between the concepts of sustainability and how the integration of sustainability practices into the strategies of luxury companies can affect profitability. A model based on the resource-based theory was constructed and used to test the relationship between profitability and ESG performance in this sector, in order to provide relevant quantitative data to the findings of the literature review.