Journal of Cleaner Production 279 (2021) 123213

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Managing intellectual capital for sustainability: Evidence from a Re-

municipalized, publicly owned waste management firm
Mario Minoja a, *, Giulia Romano b
a
Department of Economic and Statistical Sciences, University of Udine, Via Tomadini, 30, 33100, Udine, Italy
b
Department of Economics and Management, University of Pisa, Via Ridolfi, 10, 56124, Pisa, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In response to the call for new studies on the so-called fifth stage of intellectual capital (IC), this study has
Received 23 August 2019 two main goals. First, it aims to explore how IC affects sustainability in a triple bottom line perspective,
Received in revised form namely, the joint and synergic achievement of economic, social, and environmental results in the waste
25 April 2020
management sector. Second, this study aims to understand how (private vs. public) ownership affects the
Accepted 5 July 2020
Available online 8 August 2020
ICesustainability relationship. After carrying out a qualitative study on an Italian waste management
firm with a strong sustainability orientation and a circular economy business model, we find first, that, IC
Handling Editor: Yutao Wang contributes to the triple bottom line performance to the extent that the commitment to sustainability is
integrated into the full range of governance and managerial processes, including those involving IC.
Keywords: Second, we find that stakeholders’ proactive involvement in IC processes is crucial to develop, exploit,
Intellectual capital and then replicate and scale sustainable business models. Third, we conclude that public ownership is
Ownership more suitable than private ownership for directing IC processes toward sustainable performance, owing
Sustainability to lower pressure on profits and dividends, willingness to invest with delayed returns, and stronger
Waste utility
relationships with the community.
Circular economy
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction p. 15); the impact of IC on “wider ecosystems like countries, cities,

Research on intellectual capital (IC)ddefined as “[…] the sum of
everything everybody in a company knows that gives it a
competitive edge” and “intellectual material, knowledge, experi-
ence, intellectual property, information […] that can be put to use
to create [value]” (Stewart, 1997, Foreword)dhas evolved over the
last 25 years through different stages (Guthrie et al., 2012; Dumay
and Garanina, 2013). The first stage focuses on IC as a source of
firms’ lasting competitive advantage and sustained viability
(Nonaka et al., 1998; Dumay and Garanina, 2013). The second stage
encompasses studies dealing with measurement, management,
and reporting of IC, as well as with the demonstration of its impact
on financial performance and value creation.
More recently, a new wave of studies on IC have emerged and
scholars are encouraging their further development: actual
implementation of IC inside organizations following a “performa-
tive bottom-up approach” (third stage: Dumay and Garanina, 2013,
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: mario.minoja@uniud.it, mario.minoja@unibocconi.it
(M. Minoja), giulia.romano@unipi.it (G. Romano).
and communities as opposed to specific firms” and a quest for so-
cial and environmental improvements (fourth stage: Secundo et al.,
2018, p. 159); and finallydeven though at an embryonic leveldthe
mutual relationship between IC and sustainability (fifth stage:
Massaro et al., 2018). The last two stages, in particular, emphasize
the role of IC in value creation rather than wealth creation (Secundo
et al., 2016, p. 299) and stakeholder engagement for an effective
social value creation process (Secundo et al., 2018).
The role of IC in searching for sustainability, that is, the joint
achievement of environmental, economic, and social performance
in a triple bottom line (TBL) approach (Elkington, 1994), has been
investigated recently (Mertins and Orth, 2012; Wasiluk, 2013;
Tonial et al., 2019), also in the specific context of service provision,
such as waste management (Lo
pez-Gamero et al., 2011). The waste
management sector is an ideal empirical setting to identify
bottomeup strategies and practices, thereby shedding light on
ICesustainability links. Awareness and participation in waste
reduction and separate collection programs are crucial for eco-
nomic and environmental sustainability in this sector (De Feo and
De Gisi, 2010; De Feo et al., 2019). Moreover, empirical analysis of
practitioners’ thoughts has revealed a significant connection

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123213
0959-6526/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 M. Minoja, G. Romano / Journal of Cleaner Production 279 (2021) 123213
between human capital and waste, making it a key issue of envi-
ronmental sustainability (Dal Mas, 2019).
Urban waste management is one of the most relevant environ-
mental public services, and is defined as “those activities which are
enshrined within the notion of public good or service based on
universality of access for the citizenry rather than the private
provision through a market. It is assumed these ‘public services’
should be available for all members of the given society, supplied in
an equitable fashion” (Broadbent and Guthrie, 2008, p. 132). Waste
management is one of the five most important activities within the
concept of the circular economy (European Commission, 2014;
Ghinoi et al., 2020). Not surprisingly, it was regulated by the EU
Waste Framework Directive (Directive, 2008/98/EC), which fol-
lowed several other EU directives on specific waste streams (Kunz
et al., 2018). According to Lo
pez-Ruiz et al. (2019, p. 11), “waste
recycling, relocation planning and the development of green and
smoke-free spaces, the management of greenhouse-effect pollut-
ants, and the consumption and uses of water” are goals to be
addressed for improving the quality of life of European citizens.
Guthrie et al. (2010) point out that “there is a dearth of work that
explicitly considers social and environmental management and
accounting in public services” (p. 451) and conclude that “theo-
retical research and in-depth investigations of sustainability prac-
tice in public services” (p. 456) has been neglected.
A re-municipalization trend has been experienced in recent
years in Europe in public service provision (Clifton et al., 2019), both
in the water industry (Valdovinos, 2012; Kishimoto et al., 2015) and
in the waste industry (Hall and Nguyen, 2012; Becker et al., 2015).
This trend has been driven by several goals (Clifton et al., 2019),
such as increasing the quality of service, ensuring greater oversight
over policymaking, avoiding oligopolies, and paying more attention
to workers’ remuneration and conditions (Hall and Nguyen, 2012).
Cost reduction and efficiency improvement are also important
factors, together with the effective achievement of public interest,
the elimination of tendering and monitoring costs (thereby leading
to improved controls and simplified management), and lower cost
of capital (Hall, 2012). Hence, a more context-oriented approach
that measures not only costs but also service quality, and includes
effects on users, employees, and the environment has been
encouraged for future research on the ownership issue about public
service provision (Petersen et al., 2018).
This study is intended to yield further insights on the relation-
ship between IC and sustainability. It explores how a firm can
manage IC to jointly improve its environmental, economic, and
social performance, and extend the IC’s beneficial impact on the
ecosystem beyond its boundaries and stakeholders. Moving from a
dearth of research on IC in the public sector and public service
provision (Massaro et al., 2015; Secundo et al., 2016) and on the
increasing relevance of re-municipalization processes (Hall and
Nguyen, 2012; Lobina et al., 2014; Kishimoto et al., 2015; Clifton
et al., 2019), this study addresses the following two research
questions. i) How does IC affect sustainability? ii) How does
ownership affect conditions and incentives for a waste company to
commit to sustainability?
Adopting a case study methodology, we analyze an Italian,
municipality-owned company (MOC) (Contarina s.p.a.) operating in
the business of collection, treatment, and recycling of waste, with
outstanding sustainability performance through a business model
based on circular economy.
The rest of this paper is structured as follows. The next section
presents a literature review on the link between IC and sustain-
ability, and on the impact of ownership on this relationship in the
context of public service provision. After outlining the character-
istics of the waste industry in Section 3, Sections 4 and 5 deal with
the methodology and empirical setting of the Contarina case study,
respectively. In the discussion, a theoretical model is proposed to
describe the linkages between ownership, governance, multiple
managerial processes involving IC, and performance from a TBL
perspective.
2. Literature review
2.1. IC and sustainability
As highlighted by Massaro et al. (2018), IC research evolved in
the last decades through different stages, reaching the so called
fourth stage (Dumay and Garanina, 2013; Secundo et al., 2018),
where the concept of IC was extended outside the boundaries of the
organization through an ecosystem approach (Secundo et al., 2016).
The fourth stage aimed to explore how managing IC can create
value and help balance stakeholders needs, with a wider ecosystem
focus (Secundo et al., 2018). A fifth stage has recently been advo-
cated to extend “the dimension of worth in a more inclusive dialog
with different actors” and fill the gap emerging “between IC and
sustainability practice and theory” (Massaro et al., 2018, p. 382).
The impact of IC on the economic dimension of sustainability,
defined as “companies’ ability to create value and enhance financial
performance” (De Leaniz and Del Bosque, 2013), is one of the core
issues (if not the main one) of the first stage of research on IC. There,
IC is acknowledged as a key resource that a firm can leverage to
achieve sustained competitive advantage.
Studies linking IC to the other two dimensions of sustainability
are relatively more recent.
Social sustainability is defined as “a system of coordinated social
interaction practices for the management of the social impact on
people and society with the key internal and external stakeholders”
(Awan et al., 2018a, p. 4). In the context of urban waste service
provision, the social dimension of sustainability has been analyzed
by looking at some relevant key performance indicators (KPIs):
service coverage, selective collection coverage, affordability of the
service, waste container cleaning, and replies to written sugges-
tions and complaints (Marques et al., 2018).
Dameri and Ricciardi (2015) provide a good example of how IC
can support innovation to solve social issues and foster social
development even at national level. Massaro et al. (2018) state that
IC can affect social sustainability through managerial practices,
such as guaranteeing diversity and increasing accountability and
transparency. In more general terms, relational capitaldwhich is a
component of IC defined as “the intangible resources capable of
generating value connected with external relationships, such as
those with customers, suppliers and research and development
partners” (Santis et al., 2019, p. 3; Lo
pez-Gamero et al., 2011)dis
particularly able to affect stakeholder relationships and social
sustainability. In the waste industry, relational capital encompasses
a broad service coverage with an effective selective collection,
affordable tariffs, and good and fair relationships with citizens.
Research on the links between IC and the environmental
dimension of sustainability, which refers to the maintenance of
natural capital (Goodland, 1995), started at the beginning of this
century and is being increasingly developed at the same pace as the
rise of widespread environmental concerns and calls for repair. The
most relevant issues involving the relationships between IC and
environmentally sustainability include environmental knowledge
management within organizations (Boiral, 2002; Huang and Shih,
2009), the integration of environmental staff members with the
organization’s core (Rothenberg, 2003), learning processes to make
an organization more environmentally sustainable (Jamali, 2006),
intellectual and environmental capital (Claver-Corte
s et al., 2007),
knowledge repositories (Sanchez and Andre
, 2013), knowledge and
experiences as key aspects of effective environmental strategies
 M. Minoja, G. Romano / Journal of Cleaner Production 279 (2021) 123213
(Mårtensson and Westerberg, 2016), and green intellectual capital
(Yong et al., 2019). Of particular relevance in the context of public
service provision, such as urban waste management, “civic sus-
tainability” is proposed as a means to empower change in society
through civic education, awareness, and participation (Awan et al.,
2014).
Nevertheless, just a few studies have investigated how IC can
jointly impact different dimensions of sustainability. Pedrini (2007)
pioneered a stream of research aimed at demonstrating that sus-
tainability and corporate responsibility actions positively affect
intangible assets, such as corporate reputation and image, thereby
enhancing economic value and financial performance. Chen (2008),
Huang and Kung (2011), and Chang and Chen (2012) explained how
green intellectual capital (GIC)dencompassing intangible assets,
knowledge, capabilities, and relationships regarding environ-
mental protection and green innovation within a companydcan
foster competitive advantage. This effect can occur in many ways,
from minimizing production waste and increasing productivity, to
charging higher prices for green products, and even improving
corporate image building on the environmental consciousness of
consumers. GIC also produces joint effects on the different di-
mensions of business sustainability, as empirically verified by
Yusoff et al. (2019). A similar contribution is expected from sus-
tainable intellectual capital, which enables environmental man-
agement to positively affect competitive advantage through deeper
relationships with customers (Lo
pez-Gamero et al., 2011).
In spite of an increasing number of studies exploring the links
between IC and sustainability (beyond Massaro et al., 2018, see e.g.,
Walker and Preuss, 2008; Mertins and Orth, 2012; Bratt et al., 2013;
Dal Mas, 2019; Tonial et al., 2019), a major gap still emerges from
this literature review. Most studies focus on how IC affects a specific
dimension of sustainability, namely, the social, environmental, or
economic one. Thus, much room is left for research that in-
vestigates how IC can help achieve these three dimensions of
performance jointly. Not surprisingly, the literature review of
Massaro et al. (2018) and the analysis of practitioners’ thoughts
developed by Massaro et al. (2018) and Dal Mas (2019) are orga-
nized in such a way that each contribution is classified as focused
on economic, social, or environmental sustainability. In summary,
as acknowledged by Fischer et al. (2020, p. 88), “academia has only
sparsely explored the interactions among them.”
A promising yet partially unexplored avenue of research is the
role of stakeholders in ICesustainability relationships. Until now,
stakeholders (beyond shareholders) are framed as beneficiaries of
sustainability-oriented IC, to the extent that “economic perfor-
mance is not the only outcome of IC practices” (Massaro et al., 2018,
p. 382). Alternatively, and within a stakeholder perspective in
resource-based theory (Barney, 2018), stakeholders can be regar-
ded as contributors to a firm’s endowment of resourcesdand
hence, also of ICdaimed at enhancing profitability. Stakeholder
social capital, in which firmestakeholder relationships are
condensed, can be redeployed as a solidarity weaver or, instru-
mentally, as a facilitator of intellectual capital (Cots, 2011). A similar
dichotomy is transposed to the reporting context, in which KPIs on
human capital vary from emphasizing the value derived from such
capital to disclosing the value provided to employees and the
broader society (Cuganesan, 2006). A third, and more recent
approach is that of stakeholder engagement, whose core idea is that
the collective involvement of stakeholders is fundamental for
effective IC management in sustainable value creation (Secundo
et al., 2018). While developed in the specific context of a univer-
sity, the underpinnings of this approachdthat is, those of cooper-
ation and collaboration with stakeholders “to bring together their
assets, competencies and specificities” (p. 159), and of “involve-
ment of both internal and external stakeholders to create a
3
collaborative intelligence” (p. 161)dare likely to be useful also in
different organizational settings. For instance, in the context of
manufacturing firms, Awan et al. (2018b) showed that the lack of
involvement of operational staff in planning and lack of supportive
institutional policies are key barriers to implementing sustain-
ability initiatives.
2.2. The role of ownership in the ICeSustainability relationship
A second gap of the ICesustainability literature relates to the
role of the contextdand in particular the role of ownership (private
vs. public)das a factor that may foster or inhibit such a
relationship.
In the corporate governance domain, ownership stability and
long-term orientation of shareholders are considered to be able to
support processes of innovation, employee development, and
customer relations’ promotion. Specifically, “ownership and
governance that is not sufficiently expert about intellectual capital,
because, for example, of ignorance, inability, and/or unwillingness
to act, may not properly execute fiduciary responsibility for
directing and influencing the leveraging of the firm’s intellectual
capital” (Keenan and Aggestam, 2011, p. 268).
The investigation of IC in the public sector seems to be more
difficult than in the private one (Gau, 2011; Amayah, 2013), since it
is less urgent for public managers to quantify their intangibles than
their private counterparts (Cinca et al., 2003) and “do not always
have a methodology to systematize their identification, measure-
ment, management and presentation” (Ramìrez, 2010, p. 252).
However, public managers work with intangibles and the public
sector provides mainly intangible services; moreover, its strategic
objectives and outcomes are intangible. Thus, the ability to effec-
tively manage IC assets is crucial in such a context (Wall, 2005). IC
could support revitalization processes (Wiig, 2002; Edge, 2005) and
enhance efficiency (McAdam and Reid, 2000) in public service.
Hence, it has been relatively under-investigated (Wiig, 2002;
Ramìrez, 2010; Massaro et al., 2015).
Moreover, in urban waste management provision, ownership
has been investigated as a factor that could affect efficiency and the
costs of producing public services (Lombrano, 2009; Simo ~es and
Marques, 2012; Guerrini et al., 2017), rather than as a possible
driver of sustainability, broadly framed. With regard to the waste
collection service, Bel and Warner’s (2008) review shows that a
majority of studies find no differences in terms of the cost of waste
collection services under public and private production. Simo ~ es and
Marques’ (2012) meta-regression analysis reveals that public pro-
vision of waste services may produce better cost efficiency in the
richest countries; moreover, privatization loses its benefits in the
waste industry over time. Romano et al. (2019), focusing on broader
sustainability issues, recently found that privatization policies
matter, since municipalities that directly manage municipal solid
waste, or entrust them to publicly owned firms have higher sepa-
rate collection rates than other municipalities; moreover, munici-
palities that delegate such services to privately owned waste
companies record a higher production of waste per inhabitant.
Furthermore, Romano and Molinos-Senante (2020) show that eco-
efficiency, a concept of efficiency that integrates unsorted waste as
an undesirable output in efficiency estimation, is higher for mu-
nicipalities that entrust the delivery of waste services to publicly
owned firms than for municipalities with delivery carried out by
mixed and private firms. These results are consistent with the re-
municipalization trend that public service provision (Kishimoto
et al., 2015; Clifton et al., 2019) and the waste industry (Hall and
Nguyen, 2012; Becker et al., 2015) experienced in the previous
years in Europe: re-municipalization seems to exploit improve-
ment potential in quality and quantity of services provided (Hall
4 M. Minoja, G. Romano / Journal of Cleaner Production 279 (2021) 123213
and Nguyen, 2012).
Thus, there seems to be room to investigate how ownership and
re-municipalization could affect IC creation and exploitation for
sustainability goals.
3. Background: the waste industry in Europe including Italy
Municipal solid waste collection is a public service with signif-
icant influence on the environment, public health, and the well-
being of a local area; it also affects household budget, since the
costs are recovered through citizens’ taxes; thus, the efficiency and
sustainability achieved in providing this service is of utmost
importance (Guerrini et al., 2017).
Solid waste is strictly linked to urbanization and economic
development, and is one of the major global environmental issues
(Song et al., 2015). At a global level, use of materials is estimated to
have increased almost ten-fold since 1900, accelerating the growth
rate significantly (Krausmann et al., 2009). OECD countries produce
almost half of the world’s waste (World Bank, 2012). Thus,
municipal solid waste management is a crucial service, with rele-
vant institutional, financial, social, and environmental implications.
In Italy, waste produced annually by each citizen increased by
22% in a decade (ISTAT, 2013). From 2015 to 2016, it increased by
2.2%, from 486 kg to 497 kg per person, higher that the European
(EU28) average of 483 kg per person (ISPRA, 2018). Moreover, more
than 36% of municipal waste was landfilled in 2013, a higher per-
centage than the EU average of 30.56% (Eurostat, 2017).
According to Guerrini et al. (2017), the curbside method of waste
collection should be encouraged because its higher costs are
overcome by collecting larger amounts of recyclable waste and
greater efficiency. Moreover, “in order to speed up the learning
process with this method, a waste firm should realize investments
in technology devices and communications to citizens on how to
carry out an effective separation of waste produced” (p. 440).
In accordance with the European framework, waste services in
Italy can be directly delivered by a municipality or by i) a publicly
owned company whose capital is fully owned by municipalities or
other public bodies; ii) a private company chosen via a competitive
public tender whose owners are restricted to private individuals or
firms; or iii) a company with mixed ownership, where the private
partner is chosen via a competitive public tender (Massarutto,
2007, 2010; Plata-Díaz et al., 2014). In-house delegation (as ruled
by Decree 50/2016 and 175/2016, which transposes EU Directives
23, 24, and 25 of 2014) establishes a local monopoly regime and, at
the same time, limits the possibility of a waste company to operate
outside the area of the municipal shareholders to 20% of total
revenues.
As highlighted by Antonioli and Massarutto (2012), even if total
waste is handled under two different institutional regimesdthe
public service and the market regimes that apply to different types
of wastedthe boundary has become more permeable. Moreover,
the management can be through different options, from direct
management to full delegation. No uniform model can be detected
throughout Europe. However, Hall and Nguyen (2012) highlight the
growth of re-municipalization in Europe in the last decades. Even
Italy is experiencing this in different regions, such as Lazio, with the
creation of Formia Rifiuti Zero municipal company in 2015, or
Emilia-Romagna, with the creation of ALEA Ambiente in 2017 after
the decision of thirteen municipalities to re-municipalize their
waste management service. Recent studies (e.g., Romano et al.,
2019) highlight how public provisiondboth direct and dele-
gatedd leads to better results in terms of waste produced and
separate collection rates.
The Italian waste management context has been the focus of
significant attention, owing to problems experienced in some of
Italy’s most important cities, such as Naples in Campania region
and Rome (Cherubini et al., 2008; D’Alisa et al., 2010; Triassi et al.,
2015). Its characteristics are partly similar to other European con-
texts, where the debate about the public or private management of
public service provision is ongoing (Corvellec et al., 2011). Case
studies about waste management firms could provide insights into
their business models (Corvellec et al., 2011) and how they create,
sustain, and spread the intellectual capital needed to improve
service provision and stakeholder satisfaction (Lo
pez-Gamero et al.,
2011).
4. Methodology
This study takes a case-based approach, which is considered a
worthy starting point in the inductive process of theory building
(Yin, 1988). This approach is useful to address overall challenges,
such as the role of IC in improving performance from the TBL
perspective within and outside the boundaries of a company, and is
able to reveal new ideas and effective processes while coping with
complexity (Eisenhardt et al., 2016). In fact, this study started with
two research questions: how IC affects sustainability and how
municipal ownership affects this relationship, without predefined
constructs and theoretical relationships.
The present study was conducted through five main steps. First,
we interviewed five relevant players of the Italian and European
waste management industry, selected as key informants about the
most relevant sustainability trends of waste management. We held
unstructured interviews with a well-known activist, who is a leader
of the “zero waste” movement in Italy and Europe, and a winner of
the Goldman Environmental Prize; a manager that directed many
relevant waste utilities throughout Italy; a former alderman of a
well-functioning Italian municipality for waste management ac-
tivities, who subsequently became the manager of many relevant
waste utilities; the former alderman of an Italian municipality that
fostered the re-municipalization process of the municipality’s
waste management service through the creation of a start-up
municipality-owned waste utility; and a technical and EU waste
legislation expert and researcher, with decades of experience in
waste separate collection, recycling, composting, and prevention.
Second, using the information gained from the interviews with
key informants, an individual case study was considered to develop
a theory that should “stand on its own feet” (Siggelkow, 2007, p.
23). This study focused on an extreme case (Yin, 1988) within the
“zero waste” movement: an influential waste utility (Corvellec
et al., 2011) and environmental leader within the Italian waste
sector (Lo
pez-Gamero et al., 2011), namely, Contarina, which star-
ted as a publiceprivate partnership (PPP) and then became publicly
owned after re-municipalization (Hall, 2012). This company is an
example of an innovative public entity in terms of services
(Siggelkow, 2007; Corvellec et al., 2011) that works with the com-
munity to protect the environment by practicing and promoting
the circular economy (McKinsey, 2015; UNIDO, 2017); it also re-
ports good economic and financial results.
Third, following Eisenhardt’s (1989) suggestions, different data
collection methods were combined in this study: analysis of
archival sources (e.g., financial statements, sustainability reports,
informative materials available on the firm’s website, and organi-
zation charts) and eight in-depth interviews. After preliminary
conversations with relevant staff, eight people were identified as
key informants, since they were managers directly responsible or
with substantial responsibilities for strategy definition and intel-
lectual capital development and transfer (Lo
pez-Gamero et al.,
2011). Six interviews were conducted with Contarina’s chair-
person; executive director; communication and training manager;
information system, R&D, and management control manager; chief
 M. Minoja, G. Romano / Journal of Cleaner Production 279 (2021) 123213
financial officer; and general facilities and services manager.
Moreover, interviews were conducted with the executive director
of the Priula Consortium that owns Contarina and the current CEO
of ALEA Ambiente, a start-up created in collaboration with Con-
tarina for the in-house provision of municipal waste services in 13
municipalities of the Forlì-Cesena province (Italy) and his executive
assistant. As for the classic design of qualitative studies, along with
meetings and semi-structured interviews, informal discussions, on-
site observations, and document analyses were performed. In-
terviews were transcribed and processed together with other texts
(Corvellec et al., 2011).
Fourth, data analysis was performed using a coding protocol
(Strauss and Corbin, 1990) to codify and categorize data and draw
inferences from the interviews data (see Appendix 1).
Fifth, following the suggestion of Lo
pez-Gamero et al. (2011),
internal and external validity and reliability tests were handled. We
conducted multiple iterations and follow-ups throughout the an-
alyses, developed a detailed case study protocol, and analyzed
external data, such as reports of external institutions. Emerging
insights were continually verified with the interviewees through
telephone calls and informal meetings to obtain feedback and
further insights. Moreover, emerging results were discussed with
four out of the five interviewees involved at the beginning of the
research, as well as with a focus group lasting 4 h involving one of
the key informants of the Contarina case and three of the former
interviewees. Finally, an interview was conducted with a researcher
active in the zero-waste movement at the European level to discuss
some of the main findings of the research. All the interviews and
focus groups were recorded and transcribed. Thus, this study
adopted an iterative process with a certain degree of intersection
between data analysis and collection (Glaser and Strauss, 1967;
Eisenhardt, 1989): although efforts were made to analyze available
documents before the interviews, researchers discovered some
relevant archival sources during the interviews, such as corporate
presentations made to workshops or conferences and documen-
tation about new projects and plants; hence, data collection un-
derwent real-time amendments to fit emerging knowledge and
opportunities (Eisenhardt et al., 2016). This approach not only
allowed comparison of different sources, but also testing and
refinement of the conceptual framework in progress.
5. Contarina case study
5.1. Company presentation
Contarina is responsible for the urban waste management of 50
municipalities within the Treviso province in the Veneto region of
Italydan area of approximately 1300 square kilometers with about
554,000 inhabitantsdthrough an integrated system, involving
production, collection, treatment, and recovery. In 2018, Contarina
achieved an average separate collection rate of 85.6% (the Italian
average in 2017 was 55.5% and the regional one was 73.6% (ISPRA,
2018)). As reported in the last sustainability report, the unsorted
waste collected by Contarina in 2017 was 58 kg per person, far
below the 132 kg per person in Veneto and 236 kg per person in
Italy in the same year. Contarina aims to achieve 96.7% rate of
separate collection and only 10 kg per person of unsorted waste by
2022.
Financial statements from 2017 report revenues of around 79
million euros with 652 employees, a net profit of more than 1.2
million euros (totally reinvested), and a credit rating of “Aþþ”
(“excellent”).
This outstanding collection rate and its evolutionary trend is
shown in Fig. 1. The rate is significantly higher than the average
rates of the best-performing countries in Europe (Fig. 2). Contarina
5
achieved this rate due to significant efforts made since 2002. In
addition, the company’s applicable fares for waste collection are
lower than those of the best performers in Italy (188 euros per
family served vs. 271 euros on an average for Northern Italy in
2017).
The relevance and significance of these environmental results
are better understood when compared with national and European
data (Fig. 2). As highlighted in the 2016 sustainability and annual
report, comparing the waste production data with those at national
and European level, Contarina is a best practice case: the national
average per capita of waste produced is 497 kg; the European
average is 477 kg; while the Contarina result is 386 kg per capita
per year.
Contarina was set up in 1989 as a PPP (Public Private Partner-
ship) to realize the waste collection service for five municipalities in
the Treviso province. It became publicly owned after re-
municipalization in 2006, and incorporated all waste manage-
ment activities at the municipalities served in 2011. Today, Con-
tarina is directly and wholly owned by the Consortio di Bacino
Priula (Consortium) and indirectly by the 50 municipalities served.
Contarina’s success is based on a curbside collection system
with a pay-as-you-throw rate. The rate is calculated based on the
sum of a fixed rate and a variable rate. The fixed rate is calculated
considering the number of household members. The variable rate is
calculated by the number of collections of unsorted waste multi-
plied by the unitary cost of each collection passage. Thus, the lower
the quantity of unsorted waste delivered by each household, the
lower the tariff charged.
The following milestones underpin this model’s underlying
logic and enable the simultaneous, mutually reinforcing achieve-
ment of outstanding environmental performance, good political
results (e.g., lower rates for waste collection services), and eco-
nomic sustainability (earnings and resources available for
investments):
- separate waste collected is sold within multiple circular
economy-based supply chains, generating additional streams of
revenue (about 10% of total annual revenue);
- the pay-as-you-throw rate incentivizes citizens to produce and
through away the lowest possible amount of non-recyclable
waste, which, in turn, minimizes the waste disposal cost for
Contarina;
- additional revenues and cost savingsdat least partlydtranslate
into lower waste collection fares; and
- no dividends are distributed, thereby making more resources
available for investments and requiring less external financing.
Fig. 1. Average separate collection rate for municipalities served by Contarina. Source:
Company’s presentation.
6 M. Minoja, G. Romano / Journal of Cleaner Production 279 (2021) 123213
Fig. 2. Municipal waste recycling in 34 European countries. Source: EAA (2016).
Contarina’s business extended beyond the collection and
disposal of urban waste to include other services, such as road
sweeping and collection of special waste. This growth occurred in
line with the requirements of the territory, citizens, and users, by
always keeping abreast of the latest technologies and regulations in
the industry.
Contarina’s management has declared the following main goals:
i) to increase the percentage of separate collection; ii) to reduce the
amount of waste produced (in particular, the percentage of non-
recyclable waste) by citizens and firms; iii) to raise the quality of
the collected recyclable material; and iv) to improve the service
offered, optimizing the costebenefit ratio. All these goals are
consistent with the firm’s mission: being an innovator in the design
and implementation of solutions for the environment and the
protection of the territory. To achieve these goals, Contarina has put
several IC management processes in place, as summarized in the
following paragraphs.
5.2. IC management processes at Contarina
The analysis of the Contarina case study led to the identification
of several types of IC management processes. Each of them involves
different stakeholders and contributes to the overall endowment of
IC, and, finally, to the improvement along one or more dimensions
of sustainability performance.
5.2.1. Learning by doing and training of employees
The first type of IC processes is basically learning-by-doing
processesdintended as well as unintendeddwhich unfold
continuously, involve all functions and activities of the company,
and result in the development and refinement of routines, such as
bin delivery, logistics (organization of collection tours), fare appli-
cation. Hence, these processes not only enhance the company’s
human capital, but also affect its structural capital, defined as “the
resources within the entity, comprising databases, organizational
routines, procedures, mechanisms and structures of the organiza-
tion that support employees in their quest for optimum intellectual
performance” (Santis et al., 2019, p. 3).
Beyond learning by doing, employees benefit from a wide range
of education and training activities (about 9500 h in 2018, an in-
crease of 13.9% from 2017), grouped into safety and risk prevention
(47%) and technical and professional courses (53%). A specific
training activity is carried out to “train the trainers” who deliver
courses addressed to several external stakeholders within the
Contarina Academy (see next paragraph).
5.2.2. IC codification and bundling
IC codification and bundling processes enable Contarina em-
ployees to transfer experiences and accumulated knowledge in a
structured and effective way. Codification involves the preparation
of training modules and programs, delivered through the Contarina
Academy and consulting packages.
The Contarina Academy, a brand launched in October 2016,
delivers training programsdcertified UNI ISO
29990:2011dfocused on environmental education. The consulting
packages are aimed at transferring the Contarina model to other
waste companies or municipalities that intend to adopt it in their
respective territories. Codification and bundling processes are ul-
timately aimed at translating human capital into structural capital.
5.2.3. Sensitization and informational activities for citizens
Within the circular economy logic, citizens are increasingly
aware of the importance of their role in reaching adequate targets
for sustainable management of waste resources through recycling
activities and separation of waste and of the impact that wrong
behavior could have on environmental and economic performance
(Liu et al., 2009; De Feo and De Gisi, 2010; Keramitsoglou and
Tsagarakis, 2013; De Feo et al., 2019). Citizens are fundamental
stakeholders because they play dual key roles: that of customers,
since they pay for the waste collection service; and that of sup-
pliers, since the waste they produce becomes raw material to be
sold to and re-employed by different users. Citizens are benefi-
ciaries of sensitization processes on environmental issues and in-
formation delivery about how curbside waste collection and pay-
as-you-throw system work. These processes occur on multiple
occasions. First, they occur when a municipality has to decide
whether or not to become a member of the Consortium, and thus,
to entrust Contarina with the waste management service. In the
 M. Minoja, G. Romano / Journal of Cleaner Production 279 (2021) 123213
case of Treviso (about 80,000 residents), 36 meetings were orga-
nized over 7 months to transfer all relevant information about
curbside waste collection and the pay-as-you-throw system to
citizens, explain to them how the economic (lower fares) and
environmental (higher recycling rates) benefits of curbside collec-
tiondtaken togetherdmore than offset its practical disadvantages,
and finally, promote and spread environmental sensitivity and pro-
environment behavior. The second occasion is when containers for
curbside collection are delivered for the first time. As the chair-
person affirms, “this is a direct relationship, door-to-door, with
citizens. It is costly, but very effective in terms of adhesion and
sharing.” Third, an information desk (Ecosportello) is established for
each municipality, where citizens can ask for information and
finalize procedures, such as picking up the recycling material. Ac-
cording to existing literature, improved infrastructural conditions
for household recycling explain the better performance of some
municipalities (Starr and Nicolson, 2015; Hage et al., 2018).
All of these processes help to enhance relational capital, defined
as “the knowledge embedded in customers and other relationships
external to the organization” (Dumay and Garanina, 2013, p. 12).
5.2.4. Joint experimentation and IC sharing and exchange with
suppliers
Several experiences and IC sharing and exchange processes
occur with different types of Contarina’s suppliers: vehicle pro-
ducers, specialized carpenters, software houses, as well as plant
and technology suppliers. Their R&D activities result in IC being
incorporated typically in vehicles, software, and recycling plants,
and it is then combined with the experience-based IC accumulated
by Contarina to develop several innovative and environmentally
viable solutions.
Daily experience accumulated in waste collection is shared with
vehicle producers’ engineers (Isuzu and Iveco) to improve drivers’
working conditions and safety and to speed up operations. These
joint efforts result in multiple improvements, such as more
comfortable and efficient right-side driving, the relocation of the
entrance for waste loading from the backside to the right side of the
vehicle, larger doors, and lower vehicle frame.
The company’s technicians and specialized external carpenters
meet frequently to jointly design and implement several im-
provements to the electronic equipment inside the vehicles, as well
as tailor it to the firm’s specific needs and requirements.
Software houses are frequently involved with the aim to jointly
refine or develop new IC on Information Technology (IT). First, the
joint development allows continuous refinement to the electronic
of data collection and certification system for dry, unrecyclable
waste. This is a key feature in the Contarina business model, since it
is based on waste collection fees applied in proportion to unrecy-
clable waste collected from each household (17 euros per bin). The
knowledge developed in this field since 2000 has been codified in a
number of IT modules. Second, it makes it possible to control,
optimize, and transfer the maps of 1500 tours that trucks cover
every 15 days from paper to a satellite navigation system. The logic
underlying this joint effortdwhich is expected to take two years
and an investment of around 600,000 eurosdis that no existing
standard GPS includes the network of streets and alleys in both
urban and rural areas that Contarina’s drivers travel and have
stored in their maps. The newly tailored GPS system is now being
1
The CEO of Fater explained this initiative in an interview published on the
Corriere della Sera, Italy’s most widespread newspaper, and broadcast by Sky News
channel on April 6, 2020. During this interview, which was included in a series
dedicated to “Green leaders,” the Contarina initiative was mentioned as having
“excellent” waste separation collection.
7
rolled out in some areas and will be adopted by all vehicles in a few
months. Moreover, a group of employees have been trained to
collect everyday observations and exceptions from drivers and
update the maps directly on GPS without resorting to a software
house.
Contarina also cooperates with Fater,1 a joint venture between
an Italian pharmaceutical company and Procter and Gamble, which
produces and sells nappies. Fater invested 20 million euros for the
development of a new technology that allows the recovery and
recycling of plastic, cellulose, and absorbent materials from used
nappies. Contarina’s technicians have significantly contributed to
the development of the first plant in the world incorporating this
technology, which was built beside Contarina’s plants. This inno-
vative plant, which is expected to be replicated around the world,
allows Contarina to recover and recycle up to 25% of dry waste that
it has not yet been able to recover.
5.2.5. IC transfer processes to other municipalities, managers, and
waste companies
Since 2000, Contarina has received delegations from other
municipalities, both in Italy and abroad, to share the milestones of
the Contarina model and its underlying assumptions. Delegations
can visit the waste treatment plants and participate in waste
collection tours. Furthermore, Contarina employees frequently
travel to share the company’s model with environmental associa-
tions and other municipalities. “Someone used to say that our
managing director was a ‘wandering Madonna’ touring Italy,” the
chairperson acknowledges.
Contarina assists and supports municipalities that intend to
replicate its model (or parts of it) in their territories under
contractual cooperation agreements. An example is the Forlì area
(in the Emilia-Romagna region), where 13 municipalities with an
overall population of 180,000 inhabitants decided to set up a new
company (named ALEA Ambiente) for the in-house provision of the
waste service. These municipalities followed a re-municipalization
process of the urban waste management services. According to a 3-
year cooperation agreement signed in July 2017, Contarina un-
dertakes several training and consulting activities aimed at trans-
ferring its IC to ALEA Ambiente. For this purpose, some employees
of Contarina moved to ALEA Ambiente for several months to set up
organizational activities, such as logistics, customer relationship
management, IT, vehicle and equipment selection, legal issues, and
communication.
Thanks also to the training and advisory packages prepared for
an easier transfer of the accumulated IC, the Contarina model has
been easily and affordably exported to other firms and replicated,
with adaptation for local contingencies (Econet, AIMAG, and Ges-
tione Ambiente) and municipalities in Italy and even in other
countries (Vinnitsa-Ukraine).
5.2.6. Education and training activities for citizens, schools, and
civic associations
For many years, Contarina has undertaken several initiatives
aimed at making people aware of the different aspects of waste
management, such as opening disposal facilities to citizens and
environmental education activities in schools. Around 2000
educational sessions under the brand Contarina Academy were
undertaken in 2017 to develop students’ sensitivity toward the
circular economy and sustainable development; several education
initiatives based on the Contarina model and its guiding principles
are delivered to schools and associations. The company’s managers
are often involved in seminars, workshops, and debates at univer-
sities and other educational and cultural institutions with the aim
of socializing their experience, enhancing culture, and spreading
awareness on sustainability issues.
8 M. Minoja, G. Romano / Journal of Cleaner Production 279 (2021) 123213
Finally, Legambiente, an Italian environmental association, has
asked Contarina to present its model in several occasions and has
given it wide resonance around Italy, through an award patronized
by the Italian Minister of the Environment.
All these IC management processes are ultimately aimed at
enhancing the firm’s sustainability performance following an
approach labeled as “continuous improvement,“2 which is “similar
to the logic of kaizen in matters of quality” (Boiral, 2002, p. 292).
As summarized in Table 1, positive effects emerge along all three
dimensions of sustainable performance: i) economic, in terms of
lower waste disposal costs, higher operating efficiency, additional
streams of revenues from selling resources extracted from recycled
waste, as well as from training and advisory activities, etc.; ii)
environmental, such as lower amounts of waste to be disposed and
less resource and energy consumption owing to waste reduction
and recycling activities; and iii) social, like lower waste collection
fares for citizens, improved levels of awareness, consciousness, and
education of the local community on sustainability and circular
economy issues, benefits for employees in terms of education and
skills, as well as safer working conditions, benefits for municipal-
ities served, which are well supported in their policy goals (high
quality and quantity of public services, creation of new long-term
jobs due to door-to-door collection, high rate of citizens’ satisfac-
tion due to low tariffs, etc.).
Interestingly, these positive effects are extended or amplified
owing to the active involvement of several Contarina’s stake-
holders. First, the replication and scaling of the Contarina model by
waste operators entrusted in other territories have multiplicative
effects on sustainability beyond the territories served directly by
Contarina, to the benefit of other communities and stakeholders.
Second, the activities of adaptation, refinement, and extension of IC
jointly developed with Contarina can then be exploited by the
company’s suppliers in different contexts, as in the case of nappy
recycling plants or trucks producers. Moreover, as Contarina’s
managing director observed, “the innovations developed jointly
with suppliers are then showed in exhibitions around the world; it
is a way of spreading knowledge worldwide.” Finally, several in-
dividuals and organizations that have been exposed to Contarina’s
education, training, and informational activities on environmental
sustainability and circular economy are likely to give wider reso-
nance to such topics in several ways (e.g., word of mouth, media
articles, and debates at community level), as well as to adopt
increasingly virtuous, environmentally friendly current and future
behaviors.
5.3. Ownership and IC management processes
The main links between ownership and IC processes at Con-
tarina are manifold.
First, municipalities as shareholders have no profit and dividend
expectations (Romano and Guerrini, 2019), or at least lower than
private owners do, as well as a long-term orientation. According to
the chairperson, “the dividend requested by municipalities is of a
political nature … municipalities wish that citizens are pleased
with fares and services. What matters is that we cover all service
costs and obtain profits for sustaining future investments.” Ac-
cording to the managing director, “the rigidity of a contract or of a
concession to a private company does not fit the urban waste
management service, which requires fast changes and significant
2
“Our philosophy of ‘Zero Waste’ is characterized by a continuous improvement”
(executive director of the Priula Consortium); “We have projects in place for around
50 million Euro, some of which started in 2010. We are continuously evolving,
through continuous improvement” (general facilities and services manager).
investments (60 million euros in 3 years) with delayed returns.
Privately owned companies usually have shorter timeframes.” Be-
ing owned by municipalities, Contarina can afford to commit to IC
management processes with delayed expected returns, allowing,
for example, knowledge experimentation to reduce the fraction of
unrecyclable waste (e.g., nappies) and knowledge extension to
treat, recover, and recycle waste never collected before, such as
vegetable oils from private users and unconsumed food.
Municipalities have close relationships with citizens and terri-
tories, know their needs and expectations, and transfer this
knowledge to Contarina in real time; mayors of shareholder-
municipalities form the assembly that governs the Consortium.
Furthermore, citizens tend to transfer to Contarina the same trust
they have in the municipalities where they live. This trust, in turn,
contributes to create a favorable context for communication,
interaction, and knowledge transfer between the company and
citizens.
Second, the institutional regime adopted for waste manage-
mentdthe in-house delegationdis a likely factor that explains the
company’s involvement in several IC transfer activities to other
municipalities and waste companies. In-house delegation estab-
lishes a local monopoly regime and, at the same time, limits the
possibility of a utility operating outside the area of the shareholder-
municipalities to 20% of total revenues. Thus, rivalry is not an issue,
either within or outside a firm’s own territory (Corvellec et al.,
2011); IC can be freely exchanged with or transferred to other
companies or municipalities without any undesired impacts on
competition. Moreover, low pressure on profits enables Contarina
to transfer its knowledge at affordable prices with only the
following constraints: covering additional costs and not jeopard-
izing the quality of service delivered to citizens of its own territory.
Nevertheless, municipal ownership and in-house delegation
might not lead, per se, to a stronger involvement of Contarina’s
managers and employees in knowledge transfer to other com-
panies without a third factor: a broadly framed and interpreted
environmental and social mission. As the plants’ manager
explained, “the extension and replication of our model outside the
boundaries of our territory is an integral part of our mission,” which
is framed as, “to be an innovator in the design and implementation
of solutions for the environment and for the safeguard of the ter-
ritory, to the benefit of the citizens and of the shareholder-
municipalities.”
The decision of municipalities to re-municipalize the service
and buy Contarina shares (49%) owned by a private company in
2006 was ultimately driven by their aim to avoid any diversion
from the accomplishment of their broadly defined environmental
mission (according to the chairperson, “one of the private owner’s
goals was to build an incinerator”) and to remove any kind of
resource misallocation (“the cost of the former CEO, once appointed
by the private shareholder, was very high; moreover, Contarina
paid royalties, which in fact, were dividends distributed to that
shareholder”).
Furthermore, ownership fragmentation matters. It helps the
company to remain autonomous and to create and preserve re-
sources for investments. According to another manager, “a single
municipality as shareholder often leads to a blurred distinction
between the owner and the owned company, with a significant loss
of autonomy. Instead, the ownership shared by 50 municipalities
avoids requests that might benefit single municipalities and
disadvantage all others or worsen its economic viability.” Finally,
inter-municipal cooperation significantly increases the size of the
activities and thereby economies of scale (Bel and Gradus, 2018;
Soukopov
a and Vacekova
, 2018), creating economically sustainable
IC processes that would be unaffordable for companies owned by
individuals or smaller municipalities (Zafra-Go
mez et al., 2013).
 M. Minoja, G. Romano / Journal of Cleaner Production 279 (2021) 123213 9

Table 1
IC management processes at Contarina and their effects on IC endowment and performance.

IC processes Stakeholders Effects on IC endowment Effects on performance

involved

 Learning by doing and training  Employees  Routines for curbside waste collection (bin  Economic: learning economies / higher efficiency
deliveries, logistics, fare application, etc.) and lower costs of curbside waste collection; lower
 Employees’ experience and skills disposal costs; more waste available for recycling; and
thus, additional revenues from their sale
 Environmental: increasing amount and quality of
recyclable waste collected
 Social: benefits for employees in terms of new/
improved skills and professional growth; benefits for
the socio-economic context; creation of new long-
term jobs for door-to-door separate waste collection
 IC (on curbside waste collection)  Employees  Training modules and programs  Economic: decreasing marginal costs of teaching and
codification and bundling  Consulting/training packages consulting activities on how to carry out the
“Contarina model” (owing to standardization and
experience)
 Social: empowerment and opportunities of
professional development for Contarina’s employees
involved
 Sensitization and informational  Citizens  Citizens’ engagement, attitude, knowledge, and  Economic: lower collection and disposal costs; more
activities on curbside waste practical skills on waste reduction and separation waste available for recycling and thus, additional
collection revenues from their sale
 Environmental: less waste to be disposed and lower
use of resources owing to waste reduction and
recycling
 Social: lower waste collection fares, higher service
quality and quantity
 Joint experimentation and IC  Suppliers and  New or refined IC incorporated in several tangible  Economic: enhanced waste collection efficiency;
sharing and exchange employees and intangible assets (vehicles for waste lower fuel consumption; recyclability of new types
collection, software for data collection, tailored GPS of waste; shared costs and risks of investments.
maps, new plants)  Environmental: lower vehicle emissions; lower
amount of waste to be disposed
 Social: improved employees’ working conditions and
safety
 IC transfer processes (through  Other  Know-how of the “Contarina model” learnt and  Joint economic, environmental, and social (for other
training, advisory service, and municipalities accessed by other municipalities and waste waste companies/municipalities): benefits from the
Contarina employees’ temporary and waste companies replication and scaling of the “Contarina model” in
transfer) companies; other communities and territories.
employees  Economic: additional revenues for Contarina from
training and consulting activities
 Social: empowerment and opportunities of
professional development for Contarina’s employees
involved
 Education and training on  Students,  Widespread awareness and sensitivity about  Economic: lower collection and disposal costs; more
environmental and teachers, environmental issues, circular economy, and waste available for recycling; and thus, additional
sustainability issues (Contarina associations, sustainability revenues from their sale
Academy, workshops, etc.) and delegations  Environmental: more environmentally friendly
behaviors
 Social: improved community culture, stakeholder
engagement, and awareness of environmental issues,
sustainability, and the circular economy

Such large-scale activities make it possible to exploit the outcomes
of IC processes carried out by several suppliers of the company, who
find it convenient to tailor solutions to specific needs, or to test and
experience innovations that would then have access to larger
markets.
6. Discussion: managing IC for sustainability and the role of
ownership
Our empirical analysis suggests that for achieving an
outstanding sustainability performancedthat is, the joint and
synergic achievement of economic, social, and environmental re-
sults in the medium to long termdthe commitment to sustain-
ability needs to be integrated into the full range of governance and
managerial processes, including the IC processes (Adams et al.,
2012; Evans et al., 2017) (Fig. 3).
A broadly defined mission and sustainability-oriented goals
(Schaltegger and Wagner, 2011) motivate and drive the design and
implementation of a sustainable business model (Evans et al.,
2017), affecting value proposition to customers and other stake-
holders, as well as how economic equilibrium is achieved. To be
successful, such a business model requires a wide set of IC man-
agement processesdencompassing learning, investment, sharing,
codification, information, training, and educationdenabling the
scrutiny and exploitation of all possible opportunities to improve
firm performance along the three dimensions (economic, envi-
ronmental and social), individually and jointly. Stakeholder re-
lationships, in turn, integrate sustainability in different ways: i) the
firm’s activity is addressed to benefit a wider range of stakeholders,
beyond or even prior to shareholders (Stubbs and Cocklin, 2008); ii)
10 M. Minoja, G. Romano / Journal of Cleaner Production 279 (2021) 123213
Fig. 3. Managing IC for sustainability through public ownership: A general framework.
IC management processes are at the core of stakeholder engage-
ment (Jeffery, 2009), since several forms of IC exchange, transfer,
and co-production occur between the focal firm and its stake-
holders. The latter, in turn, leverages this IC to proactively
contribute to sustainability in contexts that are beyond the
boundaries and the powers of the focal firm; and iii) specific
governance mechanisms are put in place to facilitate trust, coop-
eration, and efficiency within the stakeholder network.
Specifically, IC management processes affect sustainability in
three main different and interdependent ways.
- First, IC management processes enable the conception, devel-
opment, and exploitation of a sustainable business model. A
circular economy business model, which “can enable economi-
cally viable ways to continually reuse products and materials,
using renewable resources where possible” (Bocken et al., 2016,
p. 308), synergistically affects not only economic and environ-
mental performance, but also social sustainability, in terms of
job creation (Stahel, 2016), development of new skills (Burger
et al., 2019), and creation of financial opportunities for people
in impoverished communities (Bocken et al., 2016). IC enables
the development and exploitation of a sustainable business
model (not necessarily based on the circular economy) through
two main types of mechanisms: i) stakeholder synergies, which
occur when “managers can identify novel combinations of
different utilities, each valued by different stakeholder groups,
which may be increased together” (Tantalo and Priem, 2016, p.
315); and ii) IC spillovers (Zollo et al., 2018), which occur when a
given IC component or process can be leveraged to jointly ach-
ieve improvements along two or more types of performance. For
instance, the IC development processes involving Contarina and
its vehicle suppliers resulted in improved drivers’ working
conditions and safety (social performance), reduced fuel con-
sumption, and faster collection operations (with positive im-
pacts on efficiency and thus, economic results), and lower
emissions (environmental effect).
- Second, IC management processes enable the replication and
scaling of a sustainable business model, with multiplicative ef-
fects on the overall economic, social, and environmental value
generated. These are typically processes of IC codification,
bundling, education, and dissemination, like those undertaken
by Contarina to allow other municipalities or waste
management companies to learn and replicate its business
model to the benefit of other territories and communities.
Moreover, replication and scaling are likely to occur with
decreasing marginal costs and investments, thereby generating
additional economic advantages.
- Third, IC management processes engage stakeholders in a joint
and proactive commitment to develop, share, and exchange
their own IC, thereby complementing and making more effec-
tive the focal firm’s IC processes outlined above. Stakeholder
engagement activities, such as informing, sensitizing, commu-
nicating, and training, are themselves IC processes, since they
depend on a firm’s relational capital, which, in turn, is a
component of IC (Dumay and Garanina, 2013; Santis et al., 2019).
Stakeholder engagement processes make it possible to create a
bridge between ICs residing inside and outside an organization
(Cinquini, 2012).
This insight is grounded in the existing literature of both IC and
stakeholder theory. The crucial role of stakeholder engagement to
manage IC processes for sustainability is acknowledged by Secundo
et al. (2018) in the context of a university and is indirectly
confirmed by Awan et al. (2018b) in the case of manufacturing
firms. The present case sheds new light on utilities and waste
management firms. Stakeholders’ involvement is “part of a more
effective sustainability management,” since stakeholders’
knowledge-sharing is deemed “to support the transition towards
circular economy” (Ghinoi et al., 2020, p. 2). Moreover, multi-
stakeholder partnerships are frequently formed to address com-
plex social or environmental challenges, because “the knowledge of
many different stakeholders is important as sustainability chal-
lenges tend to have unpredictable economic, social, and ecological
impacts simultaneously” (MacDonald et al., 2019, p. 412). In any
case, the relevance of stakeholders for linking IC processes to sus-
tainability ultimately depends on their own responsibility, not only
from a reciprocity perspective with the focal firm (Fassin, 2012), but
also toward a wider ecosystem and society at large.
These links between IC and sustainability do not work “auto-
matically” but need to be activated purposefully. The orientation of
IC processes toward sustainability ultimately depends on the
mission and goals driving a firm’s strategy and business model
definition. Our empirical analysis suggests that such orientation
and, more generally, integration of sustainability in key governance
 M. Minoja, G. Romano / Journal of Cleaner Production 279 (2021) 123213
and managerial processes are more likely to occurdin comparative
termsdin the case of public rather than private ownership. The
reason is that institutional goals, time horizon of economic re-
lationships, and stakeholder relationships of a municipality-owned
waste company are likely to fit better than those of a private firm
with conditions for achieving outstanding sustainability perfor-
mance (Romano et al., 2019). Unsurprisingly, re-municipalization is
increasingly being undertaken in the public service sector to better
align owners’ and other stakeholders’ goals, thereby favoring an
increased commitment and resource reallocation toward sustain-
ability with a long-term view (Valdovinos, 2012; Becker et al., 2015;
Clifton et al., 2019). Of course, it does not imply that all public
companies succeed in this and that no private waste company is
able to obtain excellent sustainability results. Legal and institu-
tional context is particularly relevantdmainly in the public service
sectordsince it affects rivalry, incentives, and resource allocation
models.
7. Conclusion
The present study contributes to the literature by filling two
main research gaps. First, whereas extant work within the different
stages of IC research (Dumay and Garanina, 2013; Secundo et al.,
2016; Massaro et al., 2018) has primarily focused on the links be-
tween IC and individual dimensions of sustainability, our study
helps to explain how IC affects sustainability from a TBL perspec-
tive, that is, the joint and synergic achievement of economic, social,
and environmental results in the medium to long term.
Second, the current debate on private versus public ownership
in public service provision is mainly focused on cost end efficiency
(Simo ~ es and Marques, 2012; Bel and Warner, 2008), thereby
neglecting possible impacts on effectiveness and sustainability. Our
study helps to fill this gap in the research by suggesting that public
ownership is more suitable than private ownership for orienting a
waste company to incorporate sustainability in all its managerial
processesdincluding those involving ICdand, hence, to strive to
achieve a high three-dimensional performance.
Therefore, this study is positioned within the fifth stage of IC
research (Massaro et al., 2018). Beyond identifying IC processes
leading to the development, exploitation, and replication of sus-
tainable business models, such as those based on the circular
economy, this study highlights the key role of stakeholder
engagement as an enabling condition for the full and effective
deployment of these processes. Hence, this study contributes to
stakeholder theory, since it suggests that sustainability not only
entails orientation toward creating value for stakeholders, but also
requires their active involvement in creating, sharing, and using IC.
Finally, this study creates a link between the IC literature and
research on public services. The “transmission belt” seems to be the
definition of a firm mission and goal function that integrates sus-
tainability: on the one hand, such a mission is a condition for ori-
enting a firm’s IC processes and efforts toward a sustainable
business model; on the other, it is likely to be favored by public
ownership. The reason is that a municipality’s socio-economic
goals, relatively long time orientation, and endowment of re-
lationships with local stakeholders are more suitable for endorsing
a sustainability-oriented mission. This is in line with re-
municipalization trends observable in public service provision
(Hall and Nguyen, 2012; Clifton et al., 2019).
This study has several limitations, all related to the specific-
dinstitutional, legal, and industrialdcontext of the case study.
Specifically, whereas the results regarding the ICesustainability
relationship are less dependent on the institutional context and
thus, can be generalized to other industries and geographical set-
tings, our insights about the role of ownership can be extended only
11
from waste to other public service segments within the same legal
and institutional context.
This work may inspire further studies and suggest research
opportunities. A possible line of inquiry is the exploration of
ICesustainability links by analyzing several case studies in different
industries and/or countries. A further research stream could
contribute to the private versus public ownership debate by
analyzing multiple cases of highly sustainable public service firms
operating in different legal and institutional contexts. Finally,
quantitative studies could propose and empirically test single,
more specific propositions linking IC, stakeholder orientation,
ownership, and sustainability performance.
Our study may also stimulate policymakers to experiment and
define legal and institutional conditions encouraging the entire
network of individuals and organizations involved in public service
provision, and particularly waste-related activities, to address their
IC processes toward sustainability in a winewin perspective. This is
a challenging task, entailing the appropriate and coordinated use of
governance rules, tariff system, tax incentives, and so on. Moreover,
designing and implementing IC processes toward the creation and
spread of a culture and practice of sustainability is a crucial re-
sponsibility for policymakers, organizations, as well as their indi-
vidual owners and managers.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Mario Minoja: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation,
Writing - original draft, Investigation, Writing - review & editing.
Giulia Romano: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation,
Writing - original draft, Investigation, Writing - review & editing.
Although the Authors jointly conducted the research, Mario Minoja
wrote sections 1, 5.2, 5.3, 6, and 7. Giulia Romano wrote sections 2,
3, 4, and 5.1.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge support from Contarina and Consorzio Priula
managers and staff, who allowed us to do interviews and provided
us with several company’s documents. We also thank the key in-
formants, Alessio Ciacci, Rossano Ercolini, Enzo Favoino, Claudio
Marciano, and Raphael Rossi, for their availability for interviews
and the focus group. We also want to thank Prof. Maurizio Massaro,
of University Ca’ Foscari of Venice, who read an earlier draft of the
paper and provided us with valuable comments and advice. Giulia
Romano acknowledges financial support from the University of
Pisa, PRA 2018.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123213.
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