ReportListen First Project and Civic Health Project

America's Bridge-building Movement: Strengthening the Fabric of One Nation, Indivisible

2025

https://docsend.com/view/u8tzqzawwraw9bhu

This report highlights the growing bridge-building movement in the United States and provides concrete examples of organizations doing this work in different settings, including policymaking, workplaces, faith communities, education, and volunteering.

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Principled Influence One-pager

ToolThird Side Strategies

Principled Influence: A Quick-Start Guide to Navigating Public Affairs in Polarized Environments

Lauren Caplan and Elizabeth Doty, 2026

What It Is: A one-page overview of our Principled Influence guide, to help public affairs leaders prepare to conduct a Public Affairs Governance Review. Outlines five elements of an effective Public Affairs Engagement Policy, three strategic benefits and three steps to complete a tailored review.

Why It Matters: Helps companies navigate polarization, anti-corporate rhetoric, and politicized decision-making by updating their policies and practices before a crisis, establishing repeatable, responsible, defensible guidelines for managing public affairs.

How to Use It: Scan the one-pager to assess whether a review would help safeguard your firm. Share it with colleagues to test interest, identify areas of focus and form a cross-functional review team. When ready, consult the full guide for step-by-step worksheets and tips (Principled Influence: A Guide to Strengthening Public Affairs Practices in Polarized Environments).

(With appreciation to the team at Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose for help in crafting this summary.)

ArticleBusiness for Social Responsibility (BSR)

Redesigning Sustainable Business amid Global Realignment

David Korngold, Aron Cramer, 2026

This report by BSR explores how a strategic context defined by fragmentation, geopolitical tension, contested information, and uneven economic and social conditions impacts companies' sustainability strategies. As climate impacts, inequality, and technological disruption accelerate, the report argues that sustainability strategies should be sharper, more resilient, and more closely tied to enterprise priorities.

The authors also argue that business plays a critical role in safeguarding the stable operating environment and bedrock institutions necessary for its success.

ArticleYankelovich Center for Social Science Research

Results That Matter: Building Trust in Elections

2026

What It Is: A research initiative from UC San Diego's Yankelovich Center, run with MIT's Election Data Science Lab and Johns Hopkins' SNF Agora Institute, testing which communication strategies actually build voter trust in elections and publishing both peer-reviewed studies and short practitioner briefs.

Why It Matters: Offers concrete, usable findings — such as the value of state-produced informational videos that increase trust in that state's own election process, and the power of advanced messages to give voters accurate information about election processes to avoid unnecessary distrust (referred to as “pre-bunking”).

How to Use It: Review and select specific briefs to inform how your organization communicates with employees about election timelines and results.

ReportAmerican Immigration Council

The Belonging Handbook

American Immigration Council, 2026

This handbook provides practical guidance for fostering belonging, inclusion, and social cohesion across communities and institutions. It explores how organizations can strengthen trust, civic participation, and cross-cultural understanding while addressing polarization, exclusion, and identity-based division in increasingly diverse societies.

ReportSustainable Brands

The CSO at an Inflection Point: Evolving Mandate, Expanding Accountability

Pamela Gill-Alabaster, 2026

What It Is: A 2026 research study led by former Chief Sustainability Officer at Kenvue, with prior CSO roles at Mattel and L'Oréal — produced with Sustainable Brands, examining how the Chief Sustainability Officer role is evolving into a strategic enterprise leadership position spanning risk, financial performance, and value creation.

Why It Matters: Argues that the CSO mandate is "expanding faster than the systems designed to support it," now touching purpose, stakeholders, regulation, and geopolitics rather than environmental performance alone. Accountability requires CSO's to both invest in critical knowledge and competencies and elevate attention when the role cannot keep pace with expectations.

How to Use It: Useful for benchmarking whether your own sustainability or CPR function has the internal authority, reporting lines, and cross-functional integration that this expanded mandate requires — worth revisiting once the full findings are available.

Report

The Law Firm Crisis: Lessons and Recommendations

Kathleen Hamill, 2026

This report is based on interviews with twenty-nine partners and associates from law firms that responded to 2025-26 Executive Orders and other federal challenges with a wide variety of strategies -- from compliance to lawsuits.

The focus was on the strategic calculations driving decisions by individual lawyers and law firms, regardless of the strategy they took. The report concludes that fear significantly magnifies perceptions of risk, collective action is critical in responding to pressure, and business leaders have a crucial stake in upholding rule of law, for its own sake and as a cornerstone of the free market system.

ArticleCenter for Political Accountability

The New Rules of Political Spending Oversight

David Pahlic, Bruce Freed & Karl Sandstrom, 2026

What It Is: A June 2026 Directors & Boards article documenting how corporate political spending oversight has shifted from a government-relations function to a board-level governance priority, citing the CPA-Zicklin Index's tracking of disclosure and accountability practices at major public companies.

Why It Matters: Companies rated "trendsetters" for political spending disclosure and board oversight grew from 28 to 112 over the past decade — a 400% increase — reflecting a shift toward Accountability and Transparency achieved through "private ordering" (companies self-regulating) rather than government mandate.

How to Use It: Use this to benchmark your company's political spending policy against the CPA-Zicklin Index and more recent Framework, and to make the case to your board that comprehensive oversight is now mainstream practice.

Article Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

Why Shareholder-Driven Corporate Social Responsibility Failed

Mark J. Roe, Harvard Law School, 2026

What It Is: A short summary of Roe’s 2026 University of Pennsylvania Law Review article that analyzes why driving corporate social responsibility through large institutional investors with market-wide exposure to risks and opportunities was politically and legally unrealistic.

Why It Matters: Argues that the same political forces and voter sentiment that have historically blocked direct government action on issues such as climate also mobilized against private sector action once prominent. In particular, shows how acting on Responsibility requires a clear, defensible basis in Legitimacy.

How to Use It: Investors, business leaders and associations can use this article to make more accurate assessments of political opposition to CSR, and to develop more realistic responses and strategies. Roe suggests engaging political barriers more directly.

ArticleHarvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

Why Shareholder-Driven Corporate Social Responsibility Failed

Mark J. Roe, 2026

What It Is: A short summary of Roe’s 2026 University of Pennsylvania Law Review article that analyzes why driving corporate social responsibility through large institutional investors with market-wide exposure to risks and opportunities was politically and legally unrealistic.

Why It Matters: Argues that the same political forces and voter sentiment that have historically blocked direct government action on issues such as climate also mobilized against private sector action once prominent. In particular, shows how acting on Responsibility requires a clear, defensible basis in Legitimacy.

How to Use It: Investors, business leaders and associations can use this article to make more accurate assessments of political opposition to CSR, and to develop more realistic responses and strategies. Roe suggests engaging political barriers more directly.

ReportEdelman

2025 Edelman Trust Barometer

2025

This report reveals a decline in trust, and how majorities now hold grievances against governments, business and the rich. Historically strong trust in “my employer” is complicated when employees hold grievances. Argues that business should respond in concert with other actors, investing in local communities, quality information, and job skills.

ArticleProMarket (Stigler Center, University of Chicago Booth School of Business)

A Pro-Market Framework for Driving Decarbonization: Part I

Karthik Ramanna, 2025

This article argues anthropogenic emissions are driven by customer preferences and that such preferences can shift with improved information, Karthik Ramanna advocates for a new approach: an economy-wide system of reliable and comparable accounts of the embedded emissions in products to allow customers (and investors) to make better-informed decisions aligned with underlying preferences.

ArticleProMarket (Stigler Center, University of Chicago Booth School of Business)

A Pro-Market Framework for Driving Decarbonization: Part II

Karthik Ramanna, 2025

Part II extends the pro-market argument, outlining a global accounting standard that would embed decarbonization throughout the economy, while remaining technological neutral about how emissions are reduced. It examiniescurrent politicies and reporting standards intended to advance emissions and challenges their top-down approach as contributing to ideological stalemate, proposing that a product-level accounting system could address this barrier.

WebsiteUS White House

AI for the American People

2025

The White House AI portal lays out a a multi-pronged national strategy to boost U.S. leadership in AI by investing in research, encouraging adoption across industries, and preparing the workforce for AI-driven changes. It highlights a commitment to developing AI responsibly by setting ethical guidelines, ensuring transparency and privacy, and fostering cooperation across government agencies to address risks and build public trust.

ReportListen First Project and Civic Health Project

America's Bridge-building Movement: Strengthening the Fabric of One Nation, Indivisible

2025

This report highlights the growing bridge-building movement in the United States and provides concrete examples of organizations doing this work in different settings, including policymaking, workplaces, faith communities, education, and volunteering.

ArticleGallup

Americans Still Want Business to Stay Quiet on Public Policy

Zach Hrynowski, 2025

A Gallup-Bentley University survey shows that only 38% of U.S. adults believe businesses should take public stances on current events, a decline from 48% the previous year, reflecting a broader trend toward preferring corporate neutrality in political matters.

ReportB Lab

B Lab Standards: Government Affairs & Collective Action

B Lab, 2025

The updated B Lab certification standards include a new impact topic on “Government Affairs & Collective Action”, requiring companies to disclose and govern their political engagement, advocacy, lobbying practices and collective initiatives for systems change. The changes raise expectations for transparency and accountability in how firms use their influence and voice.

ToolB Labs

B Labs Standard for Government Affairs

Grace Son, 2025

This framework sets new B Corp certification requirements for responsible lobbying and public policy engagement, including public disclosure of lobbying activities and country-by-country tax reporting. It also mandates that companies engage in at least two collective actions that support social and environmental goals, enhancing transparency and accountability in government affairs as part of fulfilling a beneficial purpose.

ReportB Lab

B Labs Standards: Government Affairs and Collective Action

B Lab , 2025

The updated B Lab certification standards include a new impact topic on “Government Affairs & Collective Action”, requiring companies to disclose and govern their political engagement, advocacy, lobbying practices and collective initiatives for systems change. The changes raise expectations for transparency and accountability in how firms use their influence and voice.

ArticleThe Conversation

Banks Retreat from Climate Change Commitments – but It’s Business More Than Politics

David L. Levy & Rami Kaplan, 2025

This article explains why major banks are abandoning the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, arguing that economics—not politics—drives the retreat. Despite political backlash, fossil fuels remain highly profitable and low-carbon transitions costly. The authors warn that banks’ short-term incentives and siloed risk management ignore long-term climate risks, exposing investors and markets to systemic instability and stranded assets.

ArticleBSR

Beyond the Business Case Debate: Reasserting the Strategic Value of Sustainability

David Korngold, 2025

BSR argues that the traditional “business case” conversation is broken and emphasizes the need for judgment to recognize sustainability’s strategic relevance. Rather than focusing narrowly on ROI, companies should integrate sustainability into core priorities—like innovation, operations, and digital transformation—positioning it as a driver of long-term value for both business and society.

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