Ethical Leadership and Governance

Anti-ESG sentiment led to “greenhushing” in 2023, even as the planet experienced its hottest year ever. What’s next?

With reporting requirements ramping up, businesses are under more pressure than ever to get to grips with sustainability. But who should take charge? 

As investor and consumer understanding evolves, companies face pressure to demonstrate ESG risk management and performance with transparency and credibility.

Managers need more thoughtful and effective data collection practices to advance DEI in their organizations.

Boards can drive the ESG agenda effectively by identifying what is material to their organisation and being willing to adapt along the way.

While ESG is likely to evolve both in substance and name in the coming years, its underlying impulse is here to say. Here’s how companies can take a more systematic and rewarding approach to ESG.

Corporate success is no longer just measured in dollars and cents. It's about who you are, what. you support and why you support it.

How well are boards positioned to provide oversight of ESG? BCG and the INSEAD Corporate Governance Centre have teamed up on a multiyear initiative, including regular pulse check surveys and interviews, to help answer that question.

Global corporations must approach ESG in a way that is transparent, consistent, flexible, innovative, sustainable, sensitive to cultural differences, dynamic, and future-proofed.

"It is extremely difficult" to ascertain which companies are living up to their stakeholder capitalism ideals and which are "doing it for promotion purposes,” says Colin Mayer of the University of Oxford’s Said Business School.

While most companies strive to build a culture of trust and transparency, it can be difficult to ensure people demonstrate ethical behavior at every level of a business, internally and externally.

Just as with other business priorities, stakeholder capitalism is a matter of execution. Here are five steps to get it right for better long-term value.

The role of corporations in society shifted permanently in 2020.

ESG efforts are essential for reducing harm, but it is not the same as striving for a net positive impact.

The number of companies appointing a chief sustainability officer has grown significantly over the last few years. Due to the novelty of the role, the CSO’s actual responsibilities and tasks are still vague. It’s critical for executives and boards to ensure that the CSO’s role is balanced among all three elements of ESG. The authors present a CSO’s eight distinct tasks and a visual framework to ensure that each one gets the level of effort it needs.

In an era of complex ethics algorithms and DEI/CSP/ESG checklists, simpler is better.

It’s clear that technology can enhance ESG, but ESG can also enhance technology, and, in turn, businesses and the lives of customers and employees.

Like digital transformation, sustainability is embedded into all parts of an organisation. To stay relevant, the board needs to integrate sustainability into the company’s overall strategy.

Companies must develop the capacity to accurately assess the execution of purpose-driven strategies on ESG goals.

A 5-step framework for putting purpose into practice.

In recognition of environmental, social and governance’s (ESG) rising importance in long-term value creation, boards should be increasingly focused on how to evolve their governance structures to consider ESG more intentionally.

Integrity must be a priority for leadership if it’s to be taken seriously companywide.

A tool called ClimateBert assessed whether companies are actually doing what they say they’re doing when it comes to the environment.

While the vast majority of S&P 500 companies are formalizing ESG reporting, analysis suggests that governance metrics are being overlooked.

ESG has the potential to revamp how organizations plan, implement and operate successfully. How to embrace such a transformation?