Companies Have Woken Up to Climate Change—But Not Yet to Biodiversity Conservation

Regulatory measures are being sought to support sustainable development initiatives.

FIBS’s “Corporate Responsibility 2019” survey, released today, reveals that Finnish companies have woken up to the reality of climate change. As many as 87 percent of the
business leaders and experts who responded to the survey said that climate change is an important or very important focus area for their organization’s sustainability efforts over the next 12 months. Climate change was perceived as an even more important factor than ethics (79 percent) and the circular economy (71 percent).

In contrast to another global mega-challenge, the need to protect biodiversity is not yet recognized by companies: biodiversity is the least important issue for companies, with only 8% of respondents citing it as a very important priority.

“At the very latest, the climate report published by the IPCC last October seems to have opened the eyes of business leaders,” says Ulla Roiha, head of FIBS. “Companies are increasingly recognizing
their role as drivers of change toward sustainable development. There are good reasons for this from a purely financial perspective as well.”

“It is, however, extremely concerning that biodiversity is being treated as the least important priority. Hopefully, the recently published report by the UN Nature Panel will
prompt companies to quickly realize that protecting natural capital is vital not only for business but for the entire planet,” Roiha emphasizes.

Unexpected support for regulation

According to a FIBS study, companies are calling on lawmakers to provide support for promoting sustainable development. The majority of respondents (55 percent) believed that global challenges should be addressed primarily through legislation and international agreements.

“The desire for a level playing field defined by regulation is understandable,” says Ulla Roiha. “However, it was surprising how little faith companies had in voluntary actions by consumers and businesses
to solve global problems such as climate change. Forty-seven percent of companies considered voluntary actions by consumers to be the worst possible solution.”

The GDPR requires companies to ensure the protection of customer data and privacy

As many as 94 percent of respondents said that safeguarding customer data and privacy is part of their corporate responsibility measures. A year earlier, the corresponding figure was 85 percent. The end of the transition period for the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation in May of last year appears to have been a driving factor.

Supporting staff equality, equity, and diversity ranked very high among corporate responsibility initiatives, with 93 percent of respondents reporting that it was included in their organization’s action plan.

“This may reflect the impact of the #MeToo scandals and other discussions on equality and diversity,” notes Ulla Roiha. “It’s encouraging to see that social issues are making their way onto companies’
agendas. One might think that companies that listen to their operating environment and act in accordance with its expectations are also in a good position when it comes to the ethical scrutiny of their operations and
building stakeholder trust, and thus also in strengthening their competitiveness.”

The FIBS Corporate Responsibility Survey is the most comprehensive survey of its kind in Finland. The survey provides a comprehensive overview of the corporate social responsibility practices, challenges, and future outlook of large and medium-sized Finnish companies. The survey has been conducted annually since 2013.

A recent 2019 survey included 188 CEOs, corporate responsibility managers, and experts from Finland’s 1,000 largest companies (according to the Suomen Asiakastieto Oy database), as well as from a few of the most significant cooperatives and other organizations. The study was conducted via telephone interviews and an electronic questionnaire administered over the phone. The interviews took place between January 10, 2019, and April 5, 2019. The study was conducted by T-Media. You can find a summary of the 2019 FIBS Corporate Responsibility Survey here.

For more information:

FIBS
Director Ulla Roiha, 040 873 2706, ulla.roiha@fibsry.fi

T-Media
Research Director Sari Maunula (questions regarding the conduct of the study), 050 409 1543, sari.maunula@reptrust-staging.fi-p.seravo.com

FIBS
FIBS is Finland’s leading accelerator of sustainable business and developer of expertise. Our goal is to encourage more and more Finnish companies to innovate productive solutions to local and global problems in collaboration with other companies and organizations, thereby rising to the top of sustainable business globally. We have over 300 members, primarily large companies. We offer tailored services to our various member groups, helping companies stay on top of corporate responsibility, deepen their organization’s sustainability expertise, and build a reputation as active developers and leaders in corporate responsibility.
www.fibsry.fi

T-Media
T-Media creates sustainable value through reputation and responsibility management. The company offers reputation analytics and advisory services using the world’s best tools. T-Media’s best-known analytics product is Reputation&Trust, which measures an organization’s reputation, sustainability, and trust levels among various stakeholders and identifies the most critical areas for improvement. The Reputation Platform and the Sustainability Force Field are our consulting methods for developing reputation management and sustainable development strategies.