ESG & the Rules of Engagement: What’s a Good Company to Do?

Corporate actions on social and environmental issues impact everything from share prices to communities to democracy. The effects are often deep and unpredictable.

In the midst of pushback against corporate action on issues like climate change, social justice, and diversity, leaders?can choose to stand down or stand up.?

This week we explore the ripple effects of corporate?action, both positive and negative. How can business leaders bolster the economy, rights and even democracy? What are the dangers if?they?don’t?

Spotlight: How Businesses Should Engage on Social Issues Amid the Anti-Woke Backlash

In this article for SSIR,?Philip Mirvis?uses Disney and Bud Light as cases studies to ask: “What’s a?good?company to do??Consider these ‘rules of engagement’ when you and your organization take a stand.”

After laying out guidelines for action,?he says: “My own research finds that companies that lead social change do not make a business case for every action they take, contemplate the risk/rewards of everything they do, or speak out solely for the sake of reputation. Instead, they turn to their animating purpose, core beliefs and values, and sense of right versus wrong to guide them.”

News Roundup

1. Risky Business: Why Executives Keep Finding Themselves in Political Firestorms?(The Conversation:?R. Michael Holmes Jr., Jackson Nickerson) Why has business “become a nexus of sociopolitical conflict” and how can leaders better manage the connected nature of capitalism and democracy? (and for a thought-provoking perspective from academia:?Harvard Should Say Less. Maybe All Schools Should.)?
2. The Campaign To Gut Washington’s Power Over Corporate America?(POLITICO: Declan Harty, Josh Sisco, Josh Gerstein)?As we await the Supreme Court’s decision on the Jarkesy case (if that sounds a little dull, it isn’t!), how could the outcome have far-ranging impacts on agencies that safeguard consumers and the economy? (also see?The Dangerous Anti-Democracy Coalition)
3. Democratic Erosion Causes Economic Decline. Here Are the 7 Kinds of Business at Highest Risk.?(Brookings:?Vanessa Williamson)?Almost no business is a democracy. So why does it matter if they operate in a country that is?
4. How One Energy CEO Is Leading a Transition Toward Clean Energy?(HBR On Strategy:?Lynn Good, Adi Ignatius) How is this CEO balancing “short-term planning and long-term advances in technology, all while managing a wide range of stakeholders”??(audio with transcript)
5. Exxon's Climate Fight With Investors Won't Be the Last?(TIME: Justin Worland)?What does it mean to be a fiduciary, and “why do some of Exxon’s investors see their financial interests differently than the company’s management?”

Also on Our Radar

What else caught our attention this week?

• Billionaires tilt the inequality playing field, but?Melinda French Gates?and?others?are working to tilt it?back.
• “What happens when the geopolitics, business, and technology of climate change interact with those of AI?”?Welcome to the Monsterverse.
• The antidote to doom is doing.

One for the Road

We’d love to hear your thoughts, and thanks so much for reading, forwarding and following. See you next week!

— The Business & Society Program