Analysing the spatial manifestation of sustainability-engaged inter-firm networks in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

Sustainability engagement is increasingly crucial for companies. While the importance of collaboration has been addressed, the spatial aspects remain understudied in this context. This paper proposes a methodology to use hyperlinks between corporate websites to model collaboration networks. We used centrality measures to compare the hyperlink network for sustainability-engaged firms with non-engaged firms. Furthermore, we investigated the spatial manifestation of these networks through a community detection at the county-level. Our results showed a higher density of the sustainability-engaged network and a higher importance of urban centres. We identified similar spatial patterns for network substructures, often aligning with administrative borders.