Quand l’environnement rencontre la finance : les ambivalences de la performance durable dans le secteur public

From a fashionable theme, Corporate Social Responsibility is now assimilated to a fashion that lasts or even to an institutionalized trend that corresponds to the wisdom of the business community. In a context of new puplic management strongly marked by capitalist constraints on value creation in public sector, the need for a utilitarian vision of corporate citizenship is essential. To this end, the main objective of this research is to observe whether it is possible to establish a causal link between the environmental commitment of public entities and their profitability. Starting from a multi-theoretical framework consisting of the theory of dependence on resources and the theory of agency, we were interested in the industrial sector as a field of research with regard to the sensitivity of this sector of activity to environmental issues. Inspired by a post-positivist epistemological stance of a hypothetico-deductive nature, the methodology adopted is quantitative. The results show a positive influence of environmental commitment towards financial performance. Our major contribution is to prove that CSR policies could instill a partnership and cooperative vision and lay the foundations for a responsible governance model necessary for the success of the common project and likely to increase the public company's profitability in the long term.