Alarmed by Speed and Scale of Disruption, CEOs Embrace Sustainability to Build Long-Term Resilience, According to UN Global Compact and Accenture

CEOs are facing an enormously challenging global context, with the vast majority (93%) experiencing 10 or more simultaneous challenges to their businesses and 87% warning that current levels of disruption will limit delivery of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), finds the largest CEO study on sustainability ever conducted by the UN Global Compact and Accenture (NYSE: ACN). While CEOs are increasingly concerned about these headwinds, nearly all (98%) agree that sustainability is core to their role, a sentiment that has grown 15 percentage points over the last 10 years of the study.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230111005909/en/

CEOs are facing a massive amount of uncertainty (Graphic: Business Wire)

The 12th United Nations Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study draws on insights from more than 2,600 CEOs across 128 countries, 18 industries, and over 130 in-depth interviews—making this the largest-ever sampling of executives, including the biggest group of CEOs from the Global South, since the start of the CEO study program in 2007. In the study, CEOs forewarn about the impact of converging setbacks for business and society, from faltering multilateralism and socioeconomic instability to supply-chain interruptions and the immediate effects of climate change.

“In a world categorized by conflict, energy shortages, rising inflation and the threat of recession, this year’s study shows CEOs do not believe the world is as resilient to crises as we may have hoped. Businesses continue to be impacted by multiple shocks. As a result, on a broad range of issues, from runaway climate change to widening social and economic inequalities, business action right now does not match the ambition and pace needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030,” said Sanda Ojiambo, Assistant Secretary General, CEO and Executive Director UN Global Compact.

As these challenges stack up, CEOs point to global issues that traditionally lie outside the corporate sphere—such as climate change or socio-political conflicts—as reasons for worry over delivering value and impact for all stakeholders. With only eight years left to rescue the SDGs, nearly half (43%) of CEOs globally say their sustainability efforts have been hampered due to the geopolitical environment, with that number even higher for CEOs from developing countries (51%). When examining net zero targets set by the world’s largest companies, Accenture also found that nearly all will miss their own targets unless they double the rate of carbon emissions reductions by 2030.