Has Your Company Gone Quiet, or Just Given Up?

Under massive political and geopolitical pressures, companies are quietly stripping the visibility from their social activities. A survey of 400 CSR and ESG executives in both Europe and the USA shows why this silence matters, and what it costs companies now and in the future. Idea in Brief The finding. A survey of 400 senior executives at large US and European firms operating in high-risk and crisis-affected markets finds the corporate social and environmental agenda intact, but driven underground. Firms are conserving the substance of their commitments while spending down their visibility, mostly under pressure from their own governments. The risk. Going quiet may be strategic but it carries long-term costs. Stakeholders cannot distinguish between quiet commitment and quiet retreat, while public visibility no longer reinforces internal accountability. Over time, this low-visibility environment can encourage commitments to gradually and quietly erode. The response. Managers should preserve social substance even when its visibility declines, but also build organizational capabilities for incorporating home-government pressures into risk assessments, capture and scale crisis management know-how, and bring younger employees into frontline decision-making as sensors for emerging social and political risks.