🌍 Practitioners ask me this question a lot: "If you had to name one thing blocking progress on business and human rights, what would it be?"
My answer hasn’t changed – in years!
There are many blockers and they are constantly shifting. But one blocker is larger than the rest, and has been around for decades.
Short-termism.
It's baked into how our businesses run, how our politics work, how we reward leaders.
So I was SO glad to read the latest WBCSD / KPMG report.
They ran a network analysis on every major sustainability risk – mapping how each one feeds the next.
Can you guess which is the risk sitting right at the center of the web, with the widest ripple effect?
👉 Business short-termism.
Short-termism halts progress, and it impacts all the other risks too (it contributes to prioritisation of immediate concerns over long-term sustainability, the underestimation of systemic tipping points, etc.)
I now have a report that backs up what I’ve been saying based on tons of data – yay!
The report identifies four priorities for us to advance:
1️⃣ Short-termism: Making the case for longer term incentives and measures, and not just a focus on short term performance and quarterly reporting.
2️⃣ Distance to the problem: Bringing business leaders and managers closer physically, intellectually, and emotionally to the science of sustainability while also bringing new voices and perspectives into the boardroom.
3️⃣ Fractal dissonance: Helping business leaders understand how they impact and depend on others as part of a complex system of interconnected, interdependent factors.
4️⃣ Underestimating existential tipping points: Working with scientists, educators and communicators to bring ecological realities to life for business leaders.
✅ So, specifically, what can you do within a company?
→ Redesign incentives. Tie executive compensation and bonuses to multi-year sustainability outcomes.
→ Bring leaders closer to the work. Organise site visits, supplier deep-dives, time with affected communities, regular briefings from scientists.
→ Diversify the boardroom. Bring in voices from outside the usual circle –human rights experts, ecologists, affected groups.
→ Build learning into governance. Make systems thinking and sustainability part of ongoing leadership development, not a one-off workshop.
→ Map your interdependencies. Run scenario exercises that show how a decision in one part of the business cascades across the whole.
→ Stress-test against tipping points. Use ecological and human rights data in financial planning.
Yes, not easy actions, but who thought changing a system would be easy?
One thing I'd add: leverage matters here. Companies have it, and they can use it to shift the rules of the short-termist system. Regulators, investors, analysts, the financial press etc. – they all reinforce the short-termism. And companies have a voice with each of them – especially if they work together.
💬 Do you agree that short-termism is a key blocker to progress on sustainability and human rights?
What are the most meaningful actions for companies to take in your view?
I truly hope you have a good weekend!
Anna 💫
PS: Do you want to hear about a conference that could very well change the world, and what it means for your company? Head over to my latest newsletter for more on the Santa Marta conference that just wrapped up in Colombia and what it means for your company.
