This book investigates how businesses can transform their operations and global supply chains to advance Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12), emphasizing sustainable consumption and production patterns. Exploring the evolving role of companies as key development actors, this book bridges theoretical discourse with practical execution. It offers critical insights into contemporary business models and their inherent challenges, emphasizing the need for a shared regulatory and uniform reporting framework, to support companies in the redefinition of existing supply chain structures to align industry operations with global sustainability targets.

Through detailed case studies in the food, electronics, and fashion sectors, the book illustrates practical applications of sustainability integration into business models. It examines how companies can measure, report, and improve their sustainability performance across the value chain and addresses the issue of greenwashing by evaluating corporate sustainability reports against existing metrics and regulations. The book concludes by advocating for unified regulatory frameworks and collaborative efforts among regulatory bodies, businesses, and civil society, highlighting the necessity of clear, mandatory and sector-specific reporting frameworks, to facilitate the transition to more regenerative and nature-positive production and consumption patterns.

Benedetta Piccinini has earned a master's in Resource Economics and Sustainable Development, and serves at the Economics Department, University of Bologna. She is a sustainability researcher and practitioner specializing in integrating sustainability into corporate practices and global value chains, with 4 years of experience working with leading organizations on sustainable supply chain management and regulatory alignment. Her research focuses on mandatory sustainability regulation, corporate accountability, non-financial disclosure, global value chain practices, and sustainability reporting.

Federica Farneti is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology and Business Law, University of Bologna, with over two decades of interdisciplinary research in sustainability, accounting, and accountability. Her work focuses on non-financial disclosure, SDG governance, and the GRI framework. She has authored 30 peer-reviewed articles, 2 books, 3 co-edited books, and several book chapters, with more than 5,000 citations on Google Scholar. She serves on the editorial board of Meditari Accountancy Research and has published in leading journals, including Accounting Forum, Public Management Review, and The British Accounting Review. She has served, among others, the Global Reporting Initiative to support the development of the GRI guidelines.

James Guthrie AM is an Emeritus Professor and Visiting Professor at IULM University, Milan, specializing in social and environmental accounting, public-sector accountability, and sustainability governance. Joint founding editor of the Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, he has authored over 250 peer-reviewed articles and 22 co-edited books, with more than 47,000 citations on Google Scholar. His research has informed parliamentary inquiries and major OECD initiatives on public sector accounting and innovation.