Strategic Value of Certifications in Manufacturing Companies: Analysis of the Leading Companies in the Marche Region

Certifications play a crucial role in enhancing a company’s reputation across multiple dimensions as they verify compliance with established norms and standards in areas such as safety, quality, and sustainability. Nowadays, sustainability certifications are particularly impactful, guiding consumer choices toward environmentally friendly products and encouraging companies to improve continuously. Social certifications, emphasizing workers' rights, gender equality, and fair wages, further reinforce ethical and social responsibility. However, obtaining certifications involves significant investment, rigorous compliance, and addressing legal and bureaucratic requirements. In Italy, Accredia oversees the validity of system certification processes, ensuring alignment with international standards and fostering transparency and reliability in certified companies. This article aims to analyse the main companies in the Marche Region, as listed in the annual Fondazione Aristide Merloni’s ranking through the possession of certifications, with particular focus on four key sectors: Fashion, Agri-food, Furniture, Automation and Machineries. The research was conducted analysing companies websites and the Accredia database, looking for certifications and analysing the results to evidence the most achieved and the gaps between companies and sectors. It emerges that larger companies have a greater capacity to obtain system certifications and that the numbers are growing for sustainability certifications, while it is noted that smaller companies have a lower rate of adoption, being more influenced by financial and organisational obstacles.