Sociopolitical issues are less feared today in executive suites around the globe than they were a year ago, according to the third McKinsey Quarterly survey on business and society,1 which was conducted in mid-September as the financial crisis began to hit the global community with full force. Compared with a year ago, when executives saw environmental issues and human rights standards more as risks than opportunities,2 they now see these two issues and many others primarily as the latter.
In this survey, executives answered questions on which issues matter most to the public and which will have the greatest impact on shareholder value, as well as which issues are emerging as important, how companies try to manage social issues, and which stakeholders have the most influence on companies. Environmental issues, including climate change, catapulted to the top of executives’ sociopolitical agendas in the previous survey and continue to gain prominence. Around half of the 1,453 executives we surveyed pick the environment as one of three issues they expect will attract the greatest amount of public and political attention and most affect shareholder value. In contrast, the issue expected to generate the second-highest degree of attention—privacy and data security—is...