Draft European Sustainability Reporting Standards – ESRS G1: Business Conduct

This CED report outlines practical steps to strengthen public confidence in U.S. elections ahead of 2024, focusing on voter access, election administration, cybersecurity, and countering mis- and disinformation—including AI-driven threats. It highlights how businesses can serve as trusted messengers and system-supporting partners, helping reinforce institutional integrity while managing political, operational, and reputational risk.

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Political Risk (A) – The report underscores how contested elections, mis/disinformation, and low trust create systemic instability that directly affects business continuity and strategic planning. 

Reputational Risks (A) – Companies engaging around elections face amplified scrutiny; inconsistent or misleading information can erode stakeholder trust and corporate credibility. 

Corporate Communications (B) – CED highlights the role companies play in delivering accurate, nonpartisan, trusted election information to employees and communities. 

Stakeholder Engagement (B) – The report encourages collaboration with election officials, civic intermediaries, and local institutions to reinforce administrative capacity and public trust.

The report reframes ESG and social purpose from optional extras to strategic essentials—rooted in fiduciary duty, risk oversight, and long-term resilience. It gives boards a practical path to lead on systemic challenges by aligning incentives, embedding preparedness into planning, and focusing capital on future-facing risks.

This policy brief outlines the challenges of AI implementation and dissemination through various sectors of society, and provides policy recommendations for how to protect privacy, safety and ethics as AI adoption grows.

This report addresses the impact of increased political polarization and decreased trust in government, which has resulted in policy differences that affect long-term business planning. To take initiative, companies should rethink their approach to PAC giving and lobbying to support bipartisanship, systemic change, and a positive social impact. 

This note acknowledges the increased pressure on business to engage in politics and counsels corporate restraint.

To better understand how businesses are navigating this toxic political environment, Business for America (BFA) surveyed more than 50 business leaders across the country and sectors, from Fortune 500 executives to small business owners. The report reveals widespread concern about escalating political backlash, highlighting the difficult balance companies face between stakeholder demands and risks like boycotts, speech restrictions, and regulatory threats.

To rebuild election trust among conservative voters, this Johns Hopkins–R Street tool outlines three actionable principles: affirm past election integrity, increase process transparency, and improve election operations. It pairs these with Gallup-backed data to guide civic leaders—including business—on addressing doubts without heightening polarization.

Conducting corporate climate policy engagement positively and appropriately is critical to creating the conditions that will enable a company to achieve its net zero transition.  This briefing, produced by the Climate Governance Initiative in collaboration with the global think tank InfluenceMap, highlights the key issues that board directors should be aware of.  

An overview of the need for CPR and how the Erb Institute’s Corporate Political Responsibility Taskforce supports companies in aligning their approaches to political influence with their commitments to purpose, values, sustainability and stakeholders, while contributing to rebuilding trust in US civic institutions. 

This article argues that corporate governance need to take account of a company's political responsibility and that the Erb Principles provide a helpful framework for doing so. 

This article argues that "corporations were never supposed to write the rules of the game. Now they need to help make them better for capitalism to survive."

This post summarizes the Center for Political Accountability’s Guide to Corporate Political Spending, which provides best practices for implementing the CPA-Zicklin Model Code. The Model Code identifies a company’s broader societal and democracy obligations and responsibilities that should govern its political spending decisions. This new Guide spells out what concrete steps and actions management should follow as it makes spending decisions and evaluates the accompanying risks. 

This tracker provides an overview of federal and state investigations into corporate ESG practices, highlighting lawsuits over misleading ESG claims by firms like BlackRock, government probes requesting information from asset managers and climate organizations, and legislative efforts aimed at limiting ESG considerations in investing. It offers essential insight into the shifting legal and reputational risks companies face in ESG governance.