UN 2030 Agenda, ESG Criteria and Human Rights: The Way of the Civil Economy

The acronym ESG refers to three main focus areas: Environment (Environmental), Society (Social) and Governance. It originated in 2005, from the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment expressed in the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda (SRI, Socially Responsible Investing). Each pillar refers to a specific set of criteria such as environmental commitment, respect for corporate values and transparency, resource consumption and social inequality. Investing in ESG therefore means directing capital towards companies that respect the environment and are attentive to social inclusion and the well-being of workers and individual rights. These are the same principles on which the theoretical path of that civil economy is built, which originated in the eighteenth-century thought of Antonio Genovesi, today oriented towards the search for a new paradigm: harmony, social justice, realism, social responsibility, centrality of the person, common home. The behavioural model would move from Homo Economicus, a perfectly rational and individualistic agent, to Homo Reciprocans, centred on the strategic role of relational goods, social capital and the principle of reciprocity in the economy, an agent oriented towards reconnecting the city with the market. Hence the adjective “civil”. The refinement of an alternative paradigm will engage European and national economic and financial policy in the coming decades, through a strategic alliance between public, private and Third Sectors, which represents the intermediate body. ESG criteria could be the rudder of a different development paradigm.