What 1,000 CEOs Really Think About Climate Change and Inequality

Last month, nearly 200 CEOs recently declared, through the Business Roundtable (BRT), that the purpose of business is no longer just maximizing shareholder profit. But are they ready to follow through? On Tuesday, a new and important study on CEO attitudes came out, and it sheds light on how chief executives think about sustainability and other global challenges. An amazing 88% of the CEOs “believe our global economic systems need to refocus on equitable growth.” Concerns about inequality have moved from “Occupy” protests a decade ago to the mainstream, and leaders see it as destabilizing. As one CEO said, “Unleashed capitalism has created extreme poverty, terrible social conditions and a difficult situation for our planet. If we cannot manage a better social transition of the wealth, we will be in trouble.” Sustainability is firmly on the agenda now, and that’s a victory many years in the making. All of the large company CEOs (ok, 99%), agree that “sustainability issues are important to the future success of their businesses.” In total, this study paints a mixed picture, much like the real world these companies are operating in. There has been lots of progress, but there are serious gaps and a lot remains to be done.