Among the noteworthy takeaways from The Conference Board's recent survey of more than 40 US sustainability executives is the respondents' expectations of the impact of COVID-19 on the company's overall sustainability program as compared to the expected impact expressed by 236 GCs, corporate secretaries and IROs in another recent survey conducted by The Conference Board, Debevoise & Plimpton, and Russell Reynolds Associates, which we reported on here ("COVID-19: Governance Implications").
As shown, whereas nearly 30% of the 40 respondent sustainability executives expect the crisis to increase the overall emphasis on sustainability and just 9% expect the crisis to put general sustainability efforts on temporary hold or decrease its emphasis, just 10% of the 236 respondent GCs, corporate secretaries and IROs executives expect the crisis to increase the overall emphasis on sustainability and 31% expect general sustainability efforts to be put on temporary hold or decreased in emphasis.
The Conference Board surmises that the lack of consensus between the two groups on this issue may be attributable to different views of the meaning of sustainability, the company's sustainability programs, and/or the impacts of COVID-19.
Not surprisingly, there is general consensus between both groups of respondents that their corporate sustainability focus may shift to the "S," i.e., social issues, such as the workforce and supply chain.
Access additional COVID-19 benchmarking resources on our Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources page under Surveys/Studies. This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!