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This was a rough year for corporate sustainability. While there are positive stories and reasons for hope, the path to a just and healthy planet undeniably got harder. For the first time in more than two decades, companies have publicly declared a retreat from social goals or climate action.
So wrote Andrew Winston, one of the world’s leading voices on sustainable business, in a Harvard Business Review article titled ‘2024 was a bad year for sustainability’. “The situation is dangerous and frankly surreal since our environmental and social challenges are only getting more obvious and more expensive,” he warned.
And yet the logic for action has only intensified. Extreme weather has flattened harvests, commodity prices have soared, islands have shrunk. The Global Tipping Points Report 2025, released in October, found that Earth has reached the first of several climate-related tipping points.
That same month, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) wrote to the UK government warning that Britain must urgently prepare for global warming of at least 2°C by 2050. Efforts to adapt to these changes must span public health, food security, infrastructure resilience, protection of cities and towns from extreme weather disruption, maintenance of public services and climate-resilient economic growth, the CCC explained. “The people of this country are already experiencing the impacts of a changing climate, and we owe it to them to prepare, and to help them prepare, for what we know is ahead.”
Ironically, such warnings put wind in the sails of those desperate to block the path to a sustainable, healthy and just society. Think Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orbán and Nigel Farage – the far-right politicians that are on the march and attacking environmental, social and governance (ESG) with gusto. “Their brand of politics, by and large, rejects climate action and is in service to corporations that want to continue plundering this planet rather than save it,” wrote New Internationalist co-editor Bethany Rielly recently. This has been a long time in the making, she noted, and is now a global movement.
There are worrying signs that this politics of fear is beginning to stick. Public support for spending on climate and the environment has fallen, according to YouGov, eclipsed by other concerns. The International Energy Agency has warned of slowing momentum, with finance and priorities moving in other directions.
A new vocabulary has emerged, with the invention of a portmanteau: greenlash. The ‘greenlash’ – a political and social backlash against environmental policies, often driven by perceived economic burdens and the costs of green transitions – has derailed Europe’s green transition and is central to the UK Reform Party’s agenda as it targets an election win in 2029. It was also the subject of an event in York in September – ‘Countering global greenlash: rethinking the UK opportunity landscape’ – that aimed to leverage the “unwritten rules of pub talk, which values plain speaking [...] and savours debate” among the invited government, business, civil society and academic guests.
“We need some sort of new narrative. We need to become more tangible for people’s day-to-day lives,” said Magnus Billing, board member at event organiser the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). Conclusions included the need to go beyond facts: “People don’t just want facts. They want vibes. Think about how to compete on vibes,” SEI noted in a publication following the event. Social justice also needs to be tied with environmental policy: “Counteract the narrative that a green transition cannot support growth with success stories about thriving businesses [and] job creation,” for example.
This new narrative must be swift. Concerns are rising that the counter argument has already emboldened companies to roll back on their climate and other ESG-related commitments. “Our sustainability journey will not always be linear, but we are focused on doing the work that can both strengthen our business resilience and support a positive impact for the planet,” said PepsiCo chief sustainability officer Jim Andrew in May, while making adjustments to various ESG goals owing to “external realities”.
The company has also dumped resusable packaging targets. NGOs were left unsure whether to laugh or cry. “We clearly can’t trust corporations like PepsiCo to do what’s best for people and the planet,” said Greenpeace USA senior oceans campaigner Lisa Ramsden. This ‘ESG reset’ has washed across the corporate world. Coca-Cola has watered down some targets, as has drinks giant Diageo and long-time sustainability pioneer Unilever. In some areas more ambitious targets have been announced, as companies look to target where they claim they can make the most difference – and reassure investors that they are resilient.
The backdrop, however, is one in which progress on everything from reducing carbon emissions to prevention of pollution and protection of biodiversity and ecosystems is too slow. And from this has emerged a fight about the future of ESG.
“It is time to revisit the fundamentals of business and sustainability,” the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) warned last year. Too many businesses, it said, were creating the impression that progress is being made, delaying more radical policies and transformative business models. The prevailing tension between profitability and sustainability must be “designed out”, it said.
Indeed, companies that have called for collaboration as crucial in tackling the climate and biodiversity crises are quietly quitting initiatives that aimed to deliver this. Nestlé recently withdrew from the Dairy Methane Action Alliance, for example, while the Net Zero Banking Alliance announced its closure in October, citing faltering climate commitments around the world.
“It is time to confront the uncomfortable truth,” according to Lindsay Hooper, CEO of CISL. “ESG as it stands – grounded in disclosures and voluntary market action – will not deliver the necessary change.” She, and others, argue that the ESG agenda has not delivered and that, in its current form, it never will. Growing numbers of NGOs share this view, but also have concerns about political will and the power of private interests.
“Groundhog day in New Zealand,” said Nusa Urbancic, CEO at Changing Markets Foundation, as the government weakened and delayed its methane target, “giving in (once again!) to the demands of its powerful farm lobby”. Indeed, this is not just about the carrot versus the stick, but what the carrots look like and who holds the stick. As Ethan Rouen, a Harvard Business School associate professor, noted following an assessment of ESG reports, “thoughtful regulation would bridge a company’s ESG activities with its operations”. However, he said he wouldn’t bet on regulation coming to solve this problem, at least in the short term. “And it is very much a problem that needs to be addressed immediately.”
So, 2026 is another decisive year, for all those pushing for change, for execution over intention. ESG in its current guise is clearly not fit for this purpose, but how to improve it – and whether that is even possible – remains a live debate that will only gather steam as more corporates publish amended commitments, and the political right continues to grow in confidence.
As Winston noted: “…all of this turmoil is having a chilling effect on open dialogue and collaboration between companies – it’s hard to create and mobilise partnerships if you’re literally not talking, which could slow action for years.” And, in a (very popular) social media post, he said: “Sustainability isn’t dead. It’s being targeted.”
Winston believes that the data does not support the idea of mass abandonment of sustainability. In fact, there are signs that sustainability leaders are digging their heels in. “I’ve seen how this subject is not getting the traction it needs in the boardroom,” said a senior executive at a major food manufacturer, as he joined a group of 20 other whistleblowers in publishing an explosive insider memo warning of “wishful thinking” on the imminent climate risks to the supply chain. “I believe we are just the tip of the iceberg in feeling there’s a lack of will ... from the people leading our companies,” another told The Grocer.
David Burrows is a freelance journalist and researcher
