A global study found that about half of sustainability experts surveyed last year believed that corporate sustainability would be side-lined as a result of the pandemic as the impact of the virus pushed many economies into recession. This year, as economies begin to rebound, one in four (24 per cent) now believe this will happen. The SustainAbility Leaders Survey by research firm GlobeScan, which has been running since 1997, annually tracks the opinions of 700 sustainability experts from 70 countries to gauge sentiment on the sustainable development agenda. Experts feel that the issue that will be most impacted by Covid in the long term is poverty and inequality, and believe that the outbreak has prompted more companies to focus on environmental issues, such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Experts from the GlobeScan study rated climate change as the most pressing sustainability issue in 2021, although the sense of urgency required to take climate action has dipped year on year, while biodiversity loss has risen sharply as a key concern, as have poverty and water pollution. Almost every conceivable sustainability issue has become more worrisome for sustainability experts during the course of this year, with discrimination, inequality and access to energy the fastest growing concerns, the research finds.

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