Did 2020 And Covid-19 Permanently Shift Leaders’ Priorities?

Did 2020 And Covid-19 Permanently Shift Leaders’ Priorities?

Twenty-twenty seems to have jolted the world's leaders awake to the fact that investing in mitigating climate change, taking care of your people and communities, and being transparent and accountable is good for the bottom line too. The ESG investment movement - for environment (workplace and the planet), social (people and communities) and governance (competence, accountability and transparency) - has been making money on those principles for decades - and out-performing others during the pandemic. Just ask MSCI, for example, or Pax Investments, or even Morgan Stanley. 

Though many top leaders have taken small steps toward ESG values here and there, such as naming a Chief Diversity Officer or a Chief Sustainability Officer, the proof that they didn't take them very seriously is in the fact that those roles rarely had much of a budget or much staff.  

However, the convergence of the multiple crisis in 2020 - the Covid-19 pandemic with the massive protests for racial equality and justice, and the imminent threats of climate change experienced in wildfires and hurricanes that wiped out entire communities - all point to the importance of E,S, and G principles, seems to have woken up the top echelon of leaders, if the annual meeting