April 22 is Earth Day. Globally, organisations, governments, individuals, and companies highlight the current environmental issues and spark inspiration and action to combat climate change. GlobalData conducted a survey to collect environmental, social, and governance (ESG) sentiments from individuals for Q1 2023.
Interestingly, only 9.8% of respondents said that most businesses are fully committed to ESG, whereas 46.1% of respondents believed that most companies use ESG as a marketing exercise, compared to 30.2% that shared the same sentiments in Q4 2022. This sharp increase in individuals not believing many companies’ ESG strategies may be due to the lack of tangible action the companies have made. For example, if a company has pledged to reduce carbon emissions in 2022 and failed to release data on how the company reduced emissions and the amount reduced, stakeholders are hesitant to believe the company.
Therefore, not only do companies need to publish their ESG strategies, but companies also need to follow through and show transparent data on their progress in combating ESG issues. Medical device companies with increased transparency that meet their ESG goals will gain stakeholder support, which will further incentivise change.
