Is the circular economy proposed as sustainability in firm mission statements? A semantic analysis

Clean production, the circular economy and eco-innovation aim at supporting global resilience and sustainability. The present work examines the conceptualization of the circular economy in Italy, via publicly available social media data. Specifically, we conducted a mixed-method analysis of the mission statements of Italian firms, as published on LinkedIn. The semantic network analysis underlined three emergent themes within these statements, referring to sustainability, technology, and production and consumption. A cluster analysis identified the most frequently occurring keywords in each of these themes, which included “sustainable development”, “technology”, “waste”, “products”, “management” and “materials.” The theme of sustainability was further analyzed with respect to its three main pillars (i.e., social, economic, environmental). According to absolute values, approximately 40% of all firms referenced all of these pillars in their mission statements. The results point to the need for interdisciplinarity at the firm level to ensure competitiveness and greater emphasis on the social component of sustainability.