Aspen Institute ESG Summit 2024: Day 1

Welcome to a unique week for the Business & Society Navigator, as we head to Aspen for this year’s?Aspen ESG Summit. For more on the event, check out the Get to know the Aspen Institute ESG Summit?video.

At this invitation-only immersive gathering of over 150?corporate trailblazers, asset owners, board directors, investment managers, academic researchers and others, we focus on the inspirations and challenges of ESG.?

Where is ESG now, and what lies ahead?

Participants share a wealth of insights during the event, and this year we are curating this content here in The Navigator.?Join us as we celebrate the dynamic discussions underway and look forward to constructive ideas for a more sustainable future.

Taking the Pulse of the Field: Summit Participant Poll

Our third annual Aspen ESG Summit kicks off by taking the pulse of the field. And the field...is feeling good? Defying recent years’ headlines about the ESG backlash, positive sentiment topped our Summit participant polling of ~150 ESG leaders. 43% of participants either agree or strongly agree that their work had gotten easier in the last year, as opposed to 33% who disagreed or strongly disagreed that their work had gotten easier in the past year.?

What explains this? Find out more and?see the full poll results here.

Summit News Roundup

• Reflections on Day 1 of Aspen Institute's 2024 ESG Summit: Inspiring but Fragile Optimism: Despite a year of pressure from multiple directions, Witold Henisz?found that “the?palpable sense of the room was optimism… The pressure of the last year has forced ESG integrators in the corporate and financial sectors to get smarter and eschew feel good promises in exchange for data-driven analytics that link environmental, social and governance factors, however labeled, to financial value.”
• Driving Impact:?Kwasi Mitchell?highlights the encouraging vibe at the Summit and what stood out for him in Day 1. “The positive energy at the Summit is palpable, and one thing is clear: when we show up, our collaborative decisions have the ability to drive great impact.”
• What Stood Out? Key Perspectives:?Meg Parker Young?points to a number of key ideas that stood out for her, including the “maturation of the industry as a whole, requiring stronger alignment to core competencies of industries and hard choices re: financing, prioritization, and corporate strategy. Hard? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.”?

One for the Road

Thanks for reading, forwarding and following. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s dispatch from Aspen’s ESG Summit!

— The Business & Society Navigators

Did someone forward this newsletter to you? Welcome! View previous editions and subscribe here!

Founded in 1998, the Aspen Institute Business & Society Program works to align business decisions and investments with the long-term health of society—and the planet.