Accelerate sustainable leadership to deliver long-term value creation

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Today, the GlobeScan / SustainAbility Leaders Survey was launched, a survey that has tracked global expert opinion on the evolution of the sustainability agenda of companies and organizations. Unilever, Patagonia and IKEA once again have emerged as the most frequently recognized corporate leaders. An exciting development this year is the entrance of four new companies: Microsoft, Ørsted, L’Oreal and Tata. Despite the exciting addition of these four new companies to the Leaders list, the overall reputation of the private sector remains bleak. Only 17 percent of respondents believe that companies are doing their part to advance the sustainable development agenda (#sdgs), with the private sector’s reputation steadily declining after peaking in 2018.  

National governments, institutional investors and companies need to do much more to tackle the expanding list of global sustainability challenges, according to survey respondents. The experts also perceive that the urgency of sustainable development challenges is rising with all the issues tracked in this survey increasing in importance since last year. Climate change, biodiversity loss and water remain at the top of the list, while social issues such as poverty, inequality and lack of access to education are also increasingly recognized as requiring urgent solutions. 

As public and private actors continue to deal with the impacts of the pandemic, experts advise companies to maintain focus on their sustainability strategies and goals, to accelerate their transitions to new business models that deliver long-term value, and to find new ways to anticipate and tackle complex risks. Successfully meeting such challenges will help businesses learn to overcome future disruptions while also making all our systems more resilient, healthy and lasting. 

Do you want to advance the sustainable development agenda in your company? Please contact us to discuss how we can support you. 

Read the full report here: https://sustainability.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GSS-Leaders-Report-2020.pdf