Accenture and UNGC have conducted, in partnership, a survey of 766 CEOs around the world on Corporate Responsibility. The results of this survey demonstrate that the economic downturn, instead of restraining corporate commitments on sustainability, made these commitments stronger. In fact, 80 % of the CEOs say the downturn has raised the importance of sustainability.
The key findings on corporate responsibility are:
• 93 % of corporate CEOs believe that sustainability will be critical to the future success of their companies.
• 81% of CEOs (up from 50 % in 2007) said that sustainability issues had become part of their company strategy and operations.
• If CEOs recognize the progresses made by their companies moving from a sustainability strategy to execution, they also say several barriers to achieving their goals still remain, such as: complexity of implementation (cited by 49 %), competing strategic priorities (48 %), lack of recognition from the financial markets (34 %)
But this study was also very interesting in highlighting the importance of Supply Chains Sustainability:
• Supply Chain is the topic which importance has increased the most in the past 3 years (88 % of CEOs consider companies should embed Sustainability issues through their global Supply Chains, up from 59 % in 2007).
• Supply Chain is also the area where implementation gap is currently the biggest: although 88 % of CEO’s believe that they should be integrating sustainability through their supply chain, only 54 % believe that this is being achieved within their own company.
• 78 % of the CEOs believe that companies should collaborate with a variety of stakeholders, such as suppliers, NGOs and governments, in order to address sustainability issues.
Complete study here.
