The April edition of “The Hub” featuring a survey report from a cross institutional research team on global corporate affairs trends.

 

Key finding of the survey and interactive panel discussions are as under:

 

1. The Big Picture : risks and opportunities for global business

 

• A. Short-term Risks to Global Business:

  • Corporate Affairs professionals see geopolitical risk and uncertainty, the impact of macro economy issues, and climate change as the biggest short term risks to global businesses. 
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• • Geopolitical risk and uncertainty remains the largest perceived short term risk to global businesses.
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• • Risks impacting the macro economy is rising.
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• • Pandemics are no longer seen as a pressing short term risk to global businesses.
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• B. Short-term Opportunities for Global Business:

   

•          Corporate Affairs professionals believe innovation and AI, climate change adaptation, and energy transition offers the biggest opportunities to global businesses.

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• C. Top ESG Issues for the organisations:

  • Climate change tops list of ESG issues for businesses, followed by net zero carbon emissions and creating more inclusion and diversity within businesses Confirming trend tracked since 2021.
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• • Inclusivity and diversity is a new mention. Inequality in society has been on pre coded list, but respondents were very specific in 2023.
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• • Plastics and single use materials has consistently lost relevance as a top ESG issue year on year since 2021.
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2. Meeting the Moment: Trust, purpose, advocacy

 

• Drivers of Trust in Business - Can be divided into two aspects: character & capabilities

 

• State of Corporate Purpose - Over nine in ten Corporate Affairs professionals claim to have an established corporate purpose at their company, and a further 3% are in the process of defining one

 

• Attitudes on Corporate Purpose - There has been a strong increase since 2021 in the belief that there is both strong stewardship from leadership and understanding from employees on delivering on corporate purpose

 

• Risk of Political Populism to Business - Increasingly, political populism and polarisation is seen to be a risk for business

 

• Appetite for Corporate Advocacy - Trend remained stable with less than three in ten companies having a strong appetite for advocacy

 

• Planned Advocacy: Key Themes in 2023 - Climate change and inequality are the main corporate advocacy topics planned for the coming year while there is overall a greater balance between environmental and social themes

 

• Concern about Greenwashing Allegations - Growing concerns amongst Corporate Affairs professionals about being accused of greenwashing with two thirds in 2023 concerned opposed to half in 2022

 

• Actions Arising from Greenwashing Concerns - Over half of greenwashing accusations have resulted in an increased focus on social and environmental performance

 

3. Building Capacity: Evolution of the Corporate Affairs Function

 

• Evolution of Roles in the Corporate Affairs Function - Scope of Corporate Affairs function continues to grow, with many activities increasing in importance

 

• Impact of Corporate Affairs Function on Creating and Protecting Business Value - Over nine in ten practitioners agree that the Corporate Affairs function has an important impact on business value creation; a significant increase from 2021

 

• Reasons Why Corporate Affairs Has a Significant Impact on Creating Business Value - The biggest impact of Corporate Affairs is on protecting and promoting reputation, followed by connecting organisations to their stakeholders, while less so in the area of influencing public policy

 

(IICA duly acknowledge the ownership and authorship of the content and republishing the same only for educational purpose.)