• airline sector
• airlines
• balanced scorecard
• compagnie aeree
• corporate social responsibility
• corporate sustainability
• ethics
• etica
• responsabilità sociale di impresa
• settore aereonautico
• sostenibilità aziendale

Environment and society are increasingly affected by human activity. World society must constantly face many problems such as climate change, air, water and soil pollutions, resources overuse, human rights, child labor, social inequalities, health and safety. Since companies are the most responsible actors for these troubles, they are stimulated to develop and adopt policies of sustainable development. Practices of Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility are increasing within many businesses for reasons which go beyond the mere compliance with legislations and regulations. Nowadays, sustainable and responsible companies behave ethically for competitive reasons as well. The connections between sustainability and business strategy occurs through the pursuit of eco-socio-efficiencies, resources cost cutting, product-service differentiation, access to ethical funds, image and reputation, and the avoidance of fines, penalties and environmental taxes.
Sustainability management occurs through a process that starts with identification of key stakeholders and the relative types of environmental or social impacts generated. Then, strategy must be developed, and communicated to all level of the organization. Leadership and commitment of top management are fundamental in order to diffuse sustainability guidelines, support the organizational structure and spread the new culture. In addition, performance measurement and management systems should drive the attainment of sustainability objectives. Environmental and social accounting systems must provide meaningful data in order to monitor the accomplishment of strategy and, at the same time, disclose the sustainability reports addressed to stakeholders.
One important aspect of the process above mentioned regards the connection between strategy and performance measurement system. In order to translate sustainability strategies into actions measurable through performance indicators, it must be emphasized the support of Balanced Scorecard (BSC). The multidimensional conception of the tool advises to integrate environmental and social aspects of business activity within the four traditional perspectives of management in the BSC (financial, customers, processes, learning and growth). Therefore, the emerging concept of Sustainability Balanced Scorecard (SBSC) is referred to the additional feature of considering the environmental and social issues connected directly or indirectly with the execution of the business processes and thus with economic success. Cause and effect relationships in the strategy map show the relations between better social and environmental performances with increasing competitiveness and profitability.
The airline sector is facing many challenges of sustainable development. Hence the case developed about a real carrier can help to better understand the matter. The implementation of a Sustainability Balanced Scorecard in Lufthansa Passenger Airline consists in a simulation of the process that starts with the identification of stakeholders and related environmental and social impacts. Based on these exposures, sustainability strategies are developed and formalized as several strategic objectives belonging to the different perspectives of SBSC. Afterwards, for each sustainability objective, numerous key performance indicators are developed in order to monitor single operative aspects related to the achievement of objectives. Finally, the construction of strategy map makes clear how sustainability performances are connected with financial ones.
In conclusion, the analysis of environmental, social and economic performances achieved by the German carrier and the comparison with direct European competitor Air France KLM and other minor competitors helps to identify the successes and criticisms deriving from sustainability purposes.