(Blog 1 of 4 in our series CR/RI at a Crossroads)
Over the past five decades, the corporate responsibility (CR) and responsible investment (RI)* movements have begun to fundamentally reshape how businesses and capital markets think about their role in society. What began as a normative push for corporations and investors to consider their environmental and social impacts has grown into a complex global ecosystem of investors, companies, civil society actors, standards bodies, and regulators.
Within the financial industry, there has been meaningful progress. Sustainability has moved from the margins of the boardroom to an integrated part of corporate governance in large firms. Trillions of dollars are now managed under ESG frameworks. Disclosure infrastructure that barely existed in the 1990s now spans continents and industries.
And yet, by the most important measure – actual change in aggregate real-world outcomes – the movement has fallen short. Global emissions continue to rise. Social inequality has deepened. The gap between corporate commitments and measurable results has never been more visible, or more contested.
At the same time, the world in which CR and RI must now operate has changed dramatically. Geopolitical instability, the accelerating climate crisis, deglobalization, the politicization of ESG, the rise of artificial intelligence, aging populations, and a profound erosion of institutional trust are reshaping the terrain. The assumptions that underpinned the movement’s first three decades no longer hold in the same way.
This is the moment to take stock, honestly and rigorously, of what has worked, what has not, and what a credible path forward looks like.
A symposium built around two hard questions
On May 7th and 8th, High Meadows Institute and Columbia’s Sustainable Investing Research Initiative (SIRI), in partnership with the Corporate Responsibility Initiative (CRI) at Harvard Kennedy School, will convene senior leaders from both the CR and RI fields to grapple with two questions:
- What have the CR/RI movements achieved in changing corporate and investor behavior?
- How can the CR/RI fields increase their ability to drive the systemic changes needed to address the challenges we now face?
These are not rhetorical questions. They are the organizing challenges for a field at an inflection point.
What this blog series will cover
Over the next three posts, we will lay out the intellectual foundation for that conversation. We will examine the genuine achievements of the past fifty years and the limits of progress. We will identify the structural forces now reshaping the economic and political context in which sustainability strategies must operate. And we will explore potential paths for the future of the CR and RI fields, with opportunities for greater constructive collaboration between the two.
The goal is to equip practitioners, investors, and policymakers with an honest assessment of where the movement stands and a clear-eyed view of what it will take to move from incremental progress to systemic change.
Next in this series: What the CR and RI movements have genuinely achieved – and where progress has stalled.
As we make this journey, we invite you to give us your perspective on the questions we are asking and how best to move the CR and RI fields forward. To provide your feedback, please take a moment to fill out the survey here.
*Terminology: In this document, Corporate Responsibility (CR) and Responsible Investment (RI) are used as inclusive terms encompassing CSR, Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Sustainability, Sustainable Finance, SRI, ESG integration, and related approaches.