Under the current political environment, businesses are changing their strategies for communicating how they incorporate ESG into their business strategies
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It’s hard to overstate how much the current political climate has diminished corporate America’s appetite for issuing pronouncements on its commitments to ESG (a set of standards for measuring a company’s impact based on environmental, social and governance practices.)
Case in point: The use of the acronym ESG in report titles had shrunk from 40% of survey respondents in 2023 to under 10% this year, according to a Conference Board study issued in April.
“Many companies are adjusting terminology in response to backlash, adopting terms in their report titles that are less politically charged, like ‘sustainability’ and ‘impact,’” said Andrew Jones, Principal Researcher at The Conference Board Governance & Sustainability Center and author of the report.
Interestingly, Jones found that, in most cases, the backlash hasn’t made companies back down on their ESG activities, but rather pushed them to recalibrate how they approach, communicate, and integrate these issues into their businesses.
Making that shift is easier said than done. Advising businesses on how to do so has generated opportunities for consultants and agencies in the corporate social impact space.
Carol Cone has been advising companies on purpose for more than four decades. In the latest chapter of her career, she leads the Carol Cone On Purpose agency and a collective of 45+ advisors that tackles projects together under the Purpose Collaborative banner.
Carol Cone has been advising companies on purpose strategies for more than four years
Carol Cone On Purpose
To help companies devise strategies for blending cause and commerce in today’s highly-charged environment, Cone and her collaborator Tony Calandro, founder of Purposeful Strategies, have developed a process they call REFRAME.
Tony Calandro, founder, Purposeful Strategies
Tony Calandro
“The problem we’re helping companies grapple with is the growing disconnect between sustainability action and how it’s communicated,” Cone explained.
“The jargon surrounding ESG and sustainability has become so overused and politicized that it obscures the real business value behind these efforts. The result is that meaningful progress gets lost in translation—both internally and externally.
“REFRAME was designed to close that gap. It helps companies clearly articulate how their sustainability initiatives create or protect business value—demonstrating that purpose and performance are not competing priorities but fundamentally connected.”
Central to this work is helping companies shift how they talk about sustainability “from moral or reputational narratives to ones grounded in measurable business performance,” said Calandro.
To link such initiatives to business strategy or financial outcomes, Cone and Calandro’s team pore over company data to connect purpose to performance. Their goal: translating sustainability from something a company says it believes in to something that’s clearly part of how it creates competitive advantage and long-term, sustainable value, according to Cone.
To show how this works in practice, Cone and Calandro shared a pair anonymized examples of their work:
For a global logistics company, the sustainability narrative was focused on fleet efficiency and carbon reduction. The Purpose Collaborative team helped reposition those same actions as business drivers—showing how fuel optimization and route efficiency directly improved margins, reduced customer costs, and enhanced reliability. The company moved from talking about “doing good” to demonstrating “doing better business.”
For a science and technology company, reframing focused on connecting sustainability and DEI efforts to business performance. “We helped the team show how diversity drives innovation, strengthens customer engagement, and improves decision-making—while aligning sustainability with product advancement and long-term resilience,” they explained
Asked for advice to corporate executives grappling with this problem, Cone and Calandro offered up two ideas:
One: Stop talking about purpose as if it’s separate from performance. The companies that communicate most effectively today are those that treat sustainability, DEI, and other commitments as part of their business model—not as side programs.
Two: Ditch the ESG jargon. Lead with outcomes, not intentions. Show how what you’re doing creates or protects value for your customers, your people, and your investors. When you communicate through the lens of business performance, you’re not defending purpose—you’re proving it.
