The Role of Brand Purpose as the Driver to Achieve Sustainability in Organizations

The chapter starts from an extensive literature review of the several topics that have addressed the theme of the relationship between firm and society (firm and corporate purpose, CSR, brand activism, cultural and iconic branding, ESG, brand humanization, corporate sustainability) proposing a theoretical systematization or a transition to a new mainstream assigning to brand purpose a supraordinate role. On the one hand, sustainability managers have long been wondering how to make investing in firm's sustainability profitable in its several forms. On the other hand, the literature on brand purpose has demonstrated that a company that adopts a long-term strategic orientation to improve society and solve its problems is able to achieve better profitability and a better return on invested capital. Thus, the idea is to consider brand purpose as the researched 'driver' to achieve sustainability in organization.