ThinkTWENTY20

A recent CEO Study on Sustainability, “The Decade to Deliver: A Call to Business Action”, conducted by the United Nations Global Compact and Accenture Strategy, involved obtaining the views of more than 1,000 top executives across 21 industries and 99 countries. The study shows some major change in the way corporate executives think about climate change and sustainability.

An article on this study, published in the Harvard Business Review, (https://hbr.org/2019/09/what-1000-ceos-really-think-about-climate-change-and-inequality) points out that the study “sheds light on how chief executives think about sustainability and other global challenges.”

Some of the quotes from CEOs are:

• “I need to recognize where consumers want us in ten years…I believe businesses that are only targeting profits will die.”

• “The younger generation is drawn to higher purpose and mission – ‘why are we doing this?’ It’s not purely the profit motive.” 

• “Unleashed capitalism has created extreme poverty, terrible social conditions and a difficult situation for our planet. If we cannot manage a better social transition of the wealth, we will be in trouble.”

All of these remarkable comments from leaders of the corporate world are recognizing that  sustainability and the broader question of how the companies fit into modern society are important and reflect a broad willingness to contemplate very different, indeed revolutionary, approaches to business.

Of course, there has been much criticism in recent years of unleashed capitalism, such as the works of Thomas Piketty, whose observations grew from studies of income and wealth inequality in society.

Corporations have long been aware of the need to address sustainability and have been reporting on their actions in their annual reports for years. But much of the action taken has not reflected the sense of urgency that we see now in the above comments, in the widespread climate inspired/demonstrations led by Greta Thunberg.

There has been much emphasis in the past on the need for governments to take action. But the governments have fallen short. Perhaps real change will come from an unlikely source – business corporations. If the recent studies are any indication, it isn’t an impossibility.