Roberto Merli

Università Degli Studi Roma Tre | UNIROMA3 · Department of Business Studies

Over time, more and more hotels have begun to include sustainability policies into their operations management. Hotels go green for a variety of reasons, including cost savings, public funding, staff commitment, public scrutiny, investor relations, and general societal good. However, one of the primary motivations for hotels to go green is to respo...

In recent years, many hotels have adopted green practices and have become greener to attract eco-consciousness consumers and to improve their economic performance. In fact, although it is often considered unsustainable, the hospitality industry is a pioneer in implementing sustainability practices. As this phenomenon grew, the number of scientific...

Tourism has a key role in the global economy, and it is a significant contributor to environmental degradation and climate change. Concurrently, it is one of the most exposed businesses to the deterioration of environmental quality. Inside the tourism sector, the hospitality industry accounts for nearly 30% of emissions and in recent years has begu...

Energy efficiency is a pillar for the energy system transition and for reaching the Sustainable Development Goals. In the light of the “energy efficiency first!” principle, European member states enforce policies to spread energy saving throughout the whole energy chain involving both citizens and industries. In this context, information and traini...

Concrete is one of the leading composite materials for construction, therefore the identification of strategies aimed at reducing its environmental impact is crucial for greening the building industry and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. One way to reduce this impact involves the opportunity to recycle waste ma...

As a result of consumers’ concern toward environmental sustainability, the hospitality industry is developing voluntary-based tools to reduce its environmental impacts and to satisfy the increasing market segment of green customers. In this context, third-party certified ecolabels ensure hotel compliance with specific environmental performance crit...

Over the last years, the lodging industry started to implement a wide spectrum of green practices to mitigate its pressure on the environment and to respond to the growing consumers' environmental concerns. Recently, scholars' attention to guest perception of hotels green practices has been grown. This paper through a PLS-SEM analysis, presents the...

In recent years, the number of the Italian organizations that have decided not to renew EMAS registration has considerably increased. This research arises from the necessity to investigate the phenomenon that has arisen in the last few years. By looking at the data of the “ISPRA Environmental Issues 2009 – 2014”, also in 2009-2010 there had already...

I limiti dell’attuale modello economico rendono necessaria una radicale e profonda trasformazione del modello lineare di produzione e consumo. La spinta a lavorare per il cambiamento, come afferma Ellen Mac Arthur, uno dei principali attori internazionali nella promozione dell’economia circolare, arriva dall’osservazione della natura la cui comples...

The Social Life Cycle Assessment (hereafter SLCA) methodology follows the ISO 14040-44 standards available for environmental Life Cycle Assessment (hereafter LCA) in the absence of a specific standard, in addition to the general principles of the SLCA guideline (UNEP/SETAC, 2009). Social impacts are the result of positive or negative pressures on t...

The environmental impact of marine and coastal tourism is gaining the attention of firms, scholars and institutions. Coastal tourism facilities play a crucial role in the sustainable management of coastal tourism areas in Mediterranean countries. One way by which tourism facilities can preserve these resources is to adopt on a voluntary basis the e...

Tourism-related activities greatly contribute to environmental degradation and, at the same time, represent one of the most vulnerable industries, considering that these activities are based on the availability of natural ecosystems in good condition and accessible to tourists. Circular Economy (CE) is considered an efficient way to overcome critic...

Since consumers’ concern toward environmental sustainability is rapidly growing, businesses are providing environmentally responsible products and services. The hospitality industry is developing voluntary-based tools in order to reduce its environmental impacts and to satisfy the increasing market segment of green customers. Therefore, the commitm...

The Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) is a voluntary Regulation that defines the European Environmental Management System (EMS). Today the EMAS is undergoing a revision process, in order to fit the scheme to organizations and stakeholders’ requirements and increase its diffusion. Italy accounts for roughly 1,000 of the 4,000 certified European...

Circular Economy (CE) aims to overcome the take-make-dispose linear pattern of production and consumption. It proposes a circular system in which the value of products, materials and resources is maintained in the economy as long as possible. In recent years there has been a proliferation of scholars' publications on the topic. This study presents...

Increasing awareness for sustainability has led to the proliferation of initiatives in the wine industry. These initiatives mainly aim at managing the environmental aspects related to wine production. In this context, the identification of suitable indicators is crucial to evaluate the industry's progress toward sustainability. Firstly, in the pres...

The Environmental Management Systems (EMSs) are voluntary tools with which companies manage the environmental aspects of their operations. In Europe, the most widespread are the ISO 14001:2015 international standard and the one defined by the European Regulation EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme). During the last years, while the number of ISO...

L'Economia Circolare (EC) mira a superare i tradizionali modelli lineari di produzione e di consumo, per sviluppare un sistema socio-economico in cui il valore dei prodotti, dei componenti e dei materiali è massimizzato nel tempo e la produzione di rifiuti è minimizzata. La Comunità Europea ha recentemente avviato il proprio Piano d'Azione per l'at...

Il turismo ha un impatto rilevante sull’ambiente e, al tempo stesso, è una dei settori più vulnerabili al degrado ambientale e al cambiamento climatico. Considerando il turismo marittimo e costiero, il suo successo nel lungo periodo è strettamente legato alla capacità di gestire i problemi di sostenibilità ambientale. Negli ultimi anni, in questo s...

Over the last decades, great attention has been paid to sustainability issues in the wine industry. Thus, many sustainability practices are spreading and at the same time many efforts have been carried out to spread them. In pursuing sustainability, a great number of wine firms have also implemented Environmental Management Systems (EMSs), in compl...

Sustainability in tourism emerged as a critical issue for a long-term strategy of industry’s growth. The accommodation sector is responsible for roughly one-quarter of tourism GHG emission and, since decades, eco-friendly practices have been applied on a voluntary basis. The implementation of these practices is partly a consequence of consumers’ gr...

Indagine sulle organizzazioni che abbandonano EMAS: le motivazioni e le proposte per il rilancio dello schema

Tourism contributes directly to over 5% of world GDP. At the same time, it has a significant impact in terms of climate change, generating around 6% of global CO2 emissions. Forecasts indicate that by 2035, emissions will increase by 160%. Accommodation is responsible for over 20% of these emissions (United Nations World Tourism Organization, 2011)...

In Italy, that accounts for over 1000 EMAS registrations, even though the number of registered organizations remained substantially stable, there has been a growth of mainly small organizations that did not renew the registration. To figure out reasons behind this negative trend and to identify potential measures to stimulate organizations to move...

Purpose: This paper put the premises of a survey that will be carried out between September and December 2015 with the aim to understand the drastic reduction of registered companies under the European EMS. In the paper, data about companies that withdraw from the EMAS Regulation have been analyzed, trying, in particular, to clarify the role of pub...

One of the tools set by the European Community (EC) to reduce the environmental impact of firms is EMAS Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009), setting up an Environmental Management System (EMS), which aims for a continuous improvement of environmental performances. Italy has the highest number of certified organization among all European Membe...

The Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) is the official Environmental Management System (EMS) issued by the European Union (EU). Italy is the country where EMAS is most widespread, accounting for over 1000 registered organizations. Since entry into the force of the Regulation in 1997, the number of registrations has constantly grown until 2008,...

Companies are increasingly required to deal with sustainability issues through the adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices. Among the different CSR aspects, workers securities fulfill a necessary issue. SA8000 is an internationally accepted tool that aims to guarantee decent workplace across all industrial sectors. Italian compa...

There are several strong and renowned commodity centres in Poland, including those located in Kraków, Poznań, Gdynia, Radom and Olsztyn. They show some diversification by their structures and specific operational conditions as well as local requirements. Such differences are observed also among foreign commodity science centres. This book contains...

The last revision of the EMAS (Eco Management and Audit Scheme) Regulation encouraged a cluster approach to increase the participation of the organizations and to involve local stakeholders in the commitment to sustainability. Our research activity intends to partially fill the literature gap in the field by investigating the Italian cluster approa...

Questa ricerca, condotta dal Servizio Interdipartimentale delle Certificazioni Ambientali di ISPRA in collaborazione con il Dipartimento di Studi Aziendali dell’Università degli studi Roma Tre, si propone come naturale evoluzione del Rapporto 166/2012 “Indagine conoscitiva sull’attuazione di EMAS nei distretti italiani”. Il lavoro, effettuato attra...

The research conducted by ISPRA Interdepartmental Service of Environmental Certification and Business Studies Department of the University of Roma Tre is proposed as a natural evolution of the "Survey on the implementation of EMAS in the Italian clusters " (Report RT_166_2012). The work presents the results of a survey realized involving specific c...

Nel corso degli ultimi trent'anni si è assistito ad un'ampia e rapida diffusione degli standard di gestione etica d'impresa. Sono stati prodotti più di 300 standard diversi allo scopo di incoraggiare la presa di responsabilità da parte delle aziende in merito a questioni di natura sociale ed ambientale. In questo lavoro è analizzato il Bilancio Soc...

The last revision of the EMAS Regulation encouraged a cluster approach to increase the participation of the organizations and to involve local stakeholders in the sustainability process. Our research activity, conducted by the Department of Business Studies of Roma Tre University and ISPRA (High Institute for Environmental Protection and Research),...

Sustainability is a key factor of competitiveness. It is important that sustainability assessments are effectively addressed in a global perspective. Therefore, beside instruments such as, for example, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment, which analyze the environmental, economic and social imp...

As is widely known, sustainability is an important factor in competition, increasing the added value of a company in terms of image and credibility. However, it is important that sustainability assessments are effectively addressed in a global perspective. Therefore, life cycle tools are adopted to evaluate environmental and social impacts. Among t...

Lo scopo di questa ricerca, condotta dal Servizio Interdipartimentale delle Certificazioni Ambientali di ISPRA in collaborazione con il Dipartimento di Economia dell’Ambientale e dello Sviluppo dell’Università degli studi di Roma Tre, è stato quello di fornire una panoramica sui distretti Italiani in possesso dell’ Attestato EMAS. La possibilità di...

Ever since its first version, the EMAS Regulation has represented a point of reference for enterprises seeking to continuously improve their environmental performances. The literature on this topic is quite abundant but has concentrated, until now, mostly on the determination of the effectiveness of the scheme, leaving out other aspects. The presen...

One of the main methods for the implementation of sustainable development at the firm level is the application of environmental management systems (EMSs), voluntary tools adopted by organisations in order to continuously improve their environmental performance. Since the late nineties the implementation and application of EMSs to clusters of organi...

Purpose The urgency to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of public administrations has led to the adoption in the public sector – in Italy as well as in other countries – of tools and models inspired by the total quality management (TQM) approach, such as the common assessment framework (CAF). A parallel need was felt within public struct...

Purpose The paper aims to illustrate the results of a testing activity of a general customer satisfaction management model designed for online services provided by public administrations. Design/methodology/approach The results are part of a wider research project, aimed at the implementation of a customer satisfaction management model for online...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a path analysis of data coming from a citizen's satisfaction survey to support decision makers in quality service improvement. In detail, the survey aims to measure citizen's satisfaction of an Italian local Public Administration regarding the “infant school (0‐6 years) enrollment service”. Design/...