How Businesses Should Frame Their Social Impact Commitments in a Post-ESG World
Businesses that do well by doing good are nothing new.
Decades before companies ranging from GE and Walmart to 3M and Target made social and environmental impact a core strategy to enable their long-term business success, Johnson & Johnson adopted a credo that prioritized patients, doctors, employees and communities before shareholders. This led to nearly a century of investments in product safety, ethical marketing, and employee welfare decades before regulation required it.
The credo's North Star influence was plainly evident during the 1982 Tylenol crisis. By sparing no expense to ensure the public's safety, Johnson & Johnson acted decisively and transparently to resolve a crisis situation in ways that remain instructive today.
Fast forward to 2026. Faced with social, political and regulatory uncertainty, businesses are uncertain how to frame the social impact of their operations with key stakeholders. According to the Ipsos Reputation Council Report 2025, research that captures the candid perspectives of 161 senior corporate communicators across 19 global markets, 80% of respondents believe businesses will be more tentative in communicating about such efforts, while 75% agree that business leaders are diluting their public commitments.
One need only read today's social media posts and news headlines to understand why. Businesses are concerned about being placed in the crosshairs of activists on either side of the sociopolitical spectrum - from being accused of greenwashing to focusing too much on the social impact of their operations. Such concerns lead to second-guessing, which leads to inaction, which leads stakeholders to conclude that businesses that were once demonstrably committed to the greater good have dialed back their commitments.
This inaction is inevitable given today's polarized climate. Once benign issue like the environment and public health now generate backlash, often triggered by online offensives mounted by activists and competitors. Another contributing factor is the haste with which many businesses embraced ESG - a term that is largely redundant with corporate social responsibility and other existing nomenclature - only to abandon it after recognizing the metrics, governance and resources required to comply with reporting standards.
Given the prevailing climate - and a decline of more than 80% in the use of the term ESG by S&P 500 companies during earnings calls - businesses need to adopt a new approach to framing their social impact commitments.
For starters, businesses should spotlight initiatives that are integral to their operations. Be it the jobs it provides in a small town or investments to reduce air, water or waste pollution, a company is far more likely to build trust with key stakeholders when its societal and business objectives dovetail with one another. Market research repeatedly finds that businesses are not credibly viewed when they position their social impact commitments as "giving back." Customers and investors, in particular, recognize that a business's foremost priority is to make money.
Businesses should also call attention to their partners, including non-profit organizations, community groups and public agencies. Their independence and expertise will enhance the credibility and appeal of a company’s efforts, while reducing the threat of public criticism.
By spotlighting these efforts, businesses should continue to engage in public reporting, but not at the expense of storytelling. One of the shortcomings of ESG, which is a compliance function for many large companies, is that it reduces social impact initiatives to their most granular component parts. Instead, a company should use these parts to create interesting, accessible storylines that reinforce its overall positioning strategy.
In turn, these storylines should be conveyed by means of integrated communications – including earned, owned and paid media – throughout the calendar year, not simply surrounding the publication of a social impact report. This demonstrates that a company’s commitments to the greater good are built into, not bolted onto, its operations.
Businesses that do well by doing good have long enjoyed competitive advantages. To capitalize fully on these advantages, however, they need to communicate publicly about their social impact initiatives. By adopting the practices outlined here, a company can increase its trust with key stakeholders, while accounting for today’s social, political and regulatory uncertainty.
David Bloomgren and Bob Knott are senior advisors with KRG Advisors. Their work on behalf of GE and Walmart is chronicled in Michael Porter’s and Mark Kramer’s Harvard Business Review cover story, “Creating Shared Value.” Both engagements are universally recognized as paradigm-shifting case studies demonstrating that businesses can gain competitive advantages by aligning societal and business objectives.
How Businesses Should Frame Their Social Impact Commitments in a Post-ESG World
