Government leaders have fallen well behind leaders of NGOs, corporations, and multilateral organizations in advancing the sustainability agenda ahead of the Rio+20 Summit, according to GlobeScan and SustainAbility’s recent survey of experts in the field. GlobeScan and SustainAbility surveyed over 500 sustainability experts from across 60+ countries on the sustainability performance of key players at the Rio+20 Summit. With experts giving high marks to NGO leaders on advancing the sustainability agenda, middling ratings to corporate leaders and leaders of multilateral … “Ahead of Rio+20, governments on back foot”
The latest GlobeScan tracking data suggest that a shift may be taking place among ethical consumers, from a focus on punishing irresponsible companies to one characterized by rewarding those companies seen as socially or environmentally responsible.
Since the early years of the last decade, there has been a marked increase in self-reported rewarding and punishing of companies on ethical grounds by consumers across 14 developing and industrialized countries. The numbers punishing companies have been much more volatile, however, likely driven by the periodic emergence of high-profile scandals affecting individual companies. But since 2005 such punishment, rather than reward, has been the dominant expression of ethical consumerism.
This picture now appears to have changed, with the numbers punishing companies for bad practices falling away, while those rewarding responsible companies remain stable. This is probably a consequence, at least in part, of increased consumer choice of ethical products in many sectors—though economic factors may also be at play in the sharp decline in those refusing to buy from irresponsible companies.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2011
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
Energy issues are seen by sustainability experts as the most important sustainable development challenge facing their country, the latest findings from the SustainAbility Survey reveal. But the findings also highlight some significant differences from region to region in perceptions of what the pressing issues are, and confirm that use of resources of all kinds is likely to dominate the agenda as emerging economies continue to develop.
Several times a year, GlobeScan and SustainAbility interview a panel of experts from around the world who work on sustainability issues within corporations, NGOs, academia, government departments, and scientific institutions. They are regularly asked to predict what the most critical sustainability issues will be over the months and years to come.
Energy is mentioned as the most urgent issue in North America, Europe, and emerging markets. While climate change emerges as the second most important issue in North America, in emerging markets water issues are seen to be nearly as critical as energy. Emerging markets are also more concerned than their industrialized-world peers about poverty and inequity, as well as deforestation and land use issues.
The results also show that European experts are more likely to be concerned about economic issues in the context of the ongoing Eurozone debt crisis, while awareness of sustainable development challenges is more frequently seen as an urgent issue by North Americans.
Finding from The 2011 GlobeScan/SustainAbility Survey (read the press release / read the full report)
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
Perceptions of how well the corporate world as a whole is living up to public expectations around its social and environmental responsibility have improved in the latest wave of GlobeScan tracking, for the first time in ten years.
At the start of the last decade, in the wake of Enron and a number of other major corporate scandals, GlobeScan recorded a sharp decline in the degree to which people around the world saw a range of industries as living up to these responsibilities. At the same time, public expectations of companies across a range of different social and environmental responsibilities rose, creating a large gap between perceived corporate performance and public expectations around CSR. Despite an ever-increasing focus on environmental and social goals among corporations in the decade since, this gap had persisted – and indeed, continued to widen.
However, this year’s slight increase in perceived corporate CSR performance suggests that the responsible business message may, perhaps, be starting to get through – although in some key countries such as the USA, no improvement is apparent. A continued focus by corporations on relevant and coherent themes in their CSR messaging, a judicious use of corporate brands to unify initiatives, an understanding of how to use new online communication channels, and appropriate partnerships with NGOs and government will all be required if this improvement is to continue.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2011
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
The dramatic shift in perceptions of Walmart’s corporate responsibility performance in the last few years is an important case study in how a company’s reputation can be enhanced. But our latest tracking suggests that its battle may not yet have been completely won.
By 2007, the Bentonville-based retail giant had become a byword for corporate irresponsibility. Nearly a quarter of the American public named it spontaneously as an irresponsible company as criticism mounted of its use of non-unionised labour, the way it sourced its products and the perceived negative effect of its dominance on other retailers.
However, with the launch of its sustainable products index, its goal of being supplied 100% by renewable energy and its commitment to eliminate 20 billion tons of carbon from its global supply chain, it started to challenge these assumptions.
In 2010, the number of American consumers naming Walmart as a responsible company outstripped those naming it as irresponsible for the first time since 2004, and it also emerged as the most frequently named sustainability leader in GlobeScan and SustainAbility’s regular tracking of sustainability experts’ views.
But this year, Unilever has overtaken Walmart as the pre-eminent corporate sustainability leader among The Sustainability Survey panel of experts, and negative views of the company have once more overtaken positive ones among the US public, possibly in light of a prominent scandal involving the presence of cadmium in Chinese-made children’s bracelets and a race incident in a store in New Jersey. Incidents like this may be inevitable given the company’s size – but they are a reminder that maintaining a sustainable reputation is at least as challenging as building one.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2011
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
20 July 2011 – Regular users of Facebook, Twitter and other online social media expect higher levels of corporate responsibility from companies, and are more likely to act on their values as ethical consumers, according to a new GlobeScan 28-nation poll released today. The poll of 28,889 people reveals that when compared to non-users of social media, regular users hold companies to a higher ethical standard, particularly when it comes to their environmental responsibility, and are also more likely to act … “Social Media Users “More Active” As Ethical Consumers: Global Poll”
Labour standards scandals such as those at Apple supplier Foxconn are having an impact on Chinese consumers’ perceptions of the CSR performance of technology companies, the latest GlobeScan tracking suggests.
At the start of the last decade, the technology sector was positively rated for its CSR by Chinese consumers, with a net score of +54, indicating that most tended to view the industry as “one of the best” in fulfilling its responsibilities to society.
This year, however, there has been a further sharp fall in Chinese ratings of the IT sector’s responsibility, and it now lies at +23.
This rating remains substantially better than many other sectors, particularly those like the oil industry with major environmental impacts to contend with, but also of the food and finance sectors.
But this decline – mirrored in other major economies – shows that leading technology companies cannot afford to be complacent as they develop their operations in China and need to show that their reputation for innovations does not become tarnished by sweat-shop workplace ethics.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 2, 2011
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
We regularly track the global public’s view of whether attempts to cut emissions of climate changing gases risk significantly damaging the economy. In most countries surveyed, opinion is polarized on this issue —suggesting that finding politically viable ways to reduce emissions will remain a daunting challenge.
In Australia, plans to impose a tax on carbon emissions for the worst polluters have met with plenty of opposition; currently only the EU and New Zealand have managed to introduce a national tax on carbon. In Europe, slight majorities tend to disagree that action on climate change will damage economies; majorities also held this view in Australia, Canada, China, and Japan when polling was carried out last year.
However, people in several countries, including the USA, the UK, Brazil, Japan, and Canada, were becoming less likely to think that greenhouse gas emission cuts would damage the economy, suggesting the developed-world public may be becoming more receptive to mitigating initiatives as the immediate economic crisis has receded. American views have shifted dramatically over the course of the recession, with a spike in 2009 in the proportion worried about the effect on the economy.
A number of emerging economies, including India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Kenya, have seen the reverse trend with a recent sharp increase in concern about the potential economic harm of measures to address climate change. This suggests that the issue will remain politically potent as the rapid growth in many of these economies continues.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 2, 2010
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
Canadian, American, and Australian consumers are among the most active and empowered ethical consumers in the world, while Indian consumers rank at the bottom, according to the 2011 GlobeScan Ethical Consumerism Funnel.
This is the result of analysis of results to a range of questions asked in our annual survey of consumer attitudes towards business in society. Filtering consumers to identify only those who are both highly attentive to responsible business and active as ethical consumers, we can see that as many as three-in-ten Canadians, and more than one-quarter of Americans and Australians, profess high expectations on companies to act responsibly in the areas of product safety, environmental integrity, and employee treatment, while claiming to be aware of what companies do to be responsible, and in addition also say they reward and punish companies for being socially responsible or irresponsible in their purchasing choices. However, the proportion of aware and active ethical consumers in the USA has decreased over the past two years, possibly as a result of persistent economic concerns.
Emerging major markets Brazil, China, and India rank low on GlobeScan’s ethical consumerist index, as consumers there expect less of companies and say they are less aware of companies’ CSR activities, while they are also less likely to make their purchasing choices based on perception of companies’ acting responsibly or irresponsibly. This suggests that while consumers are becoming more aware in these nations, the responsible business agenda has yet to break through to the mainstream consumer, and that companies will need to frame their CSR messaging within the context of economic growth and job creation in these countries.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2011
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
Conducted for The U.S. Conference of Mayors and sponsored by Siemens, this survey of nearly 400 mayors in all 50 US states has found that energy and sustainability efforts have maintained momentum within cities.