Sustainability is viewed as a safe harbour of stability in a turbulent world beset by elections and the increasing intensity of emerging “new priorities”, according to the chief executive of Diligent, the boardroom software provider.

Brian Stafford was speaking after the release of Diligent research showing that 53% of UK companies aspire to be sustainability leaders. A whopping 98% of corporate leaders expect to have a “continued or stronger” focus on ESG over the next five years.

Stafford says the elections this year and a sense that “new” priorities are emerging at an accelerated rate have contributed to a strong desire for stability among corporate leaders. Sticking with sustainability policies is one way of instilling certainty for stakeholders.

‘Too many priorities’

“What organisations want is stability…I think most CEOs and boards have said sustainability is important.” Stafford added that companies who were not aspiring to be sustainable were most likely facing competing priorities. “We operate in a world where…most organisations would say, ‘We have way too many priorities.’”

France is heading towards unexpected legislative assembly elections on 30 June and 7 July. The UK will go to the polls on 4 July, while the US stages its presidential election on 5 November.

Meanwhile, war rages in Ukraine and Gaza, while generative artificial intelligence (genAI) threatens to upend business models across the world with what Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, has popularised as ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’.

In the US, ESG and sustainability is caught up in highly polarised political debate and often derided as being part of a “woke mindset”. The introduction of new climate change disclosure requirements, from regulators at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, has been suspended while legal challenges play out.

Stafford says that, nevertheless, many US companies remain fixed on pushing ahead with sustainability policies.

Strategy first

“We found most of the larger companies in the US have decided to move towards buying the right software and tools, in part from us, to manage their carbon footprint because they either believe it is fundamentally right to do so or is one of their priorities.”

Shifting political attitudes to sustainability has been an issue for companies. Stafford observes, however, that most companies remain resistant to political caprice.
“Radically shifting your priorities based on which party is in power is not a strategic approach to how you operate, so most organisations will make their own call.”

He adds: “When I go back to most CEOs I talk to, all they’re looking for is stability. And in a world of instability, politically, you still have to create that stability across your organisation. So you make pragmatic policy, you make a call.” Diligent itself, a privately owned company, has pushed ahead with ESG reporting.

The company is no stranger to AI. This month, it launched Diligent AI, a new tool for managing risk.

This comes at a time when companies are beginning to experiment with AI, in particular generative AI, for example, ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini.

Stafford says companies are asking how it will innovate for their product or service, create productivity gains and how the risk of AI will be managed.

“Anybody who attempts to ringfence or stop or put the brakes on innovation, in a world where it [genAI] has so quickly become democratised, is not being pragmatic.” He adds that the key question to ask is: “How do you provide the right guard rails and guidance on how to best optimise it?”