What We Got Right (and Wrong) in 2019

We called it with CEO activism. Trade associations? Not so much.

Each year our team at Future 500 produces the Force for Good Forecast, a resource for corporate leaders to help them anticipate and prepare for important shifts, flashpoints, and emerging tensions in environmental and social advocacy.

We’re putting the final touches on the 2020 edition, our ninth. As in past years, we’ve crowdsourced insights from our network of activists, executives, and funders to identify the top trends and fill our Forecast with strategic tips to help leaders minimize risk and maximize reward.

This year, to honor our 25th anniversary, we’re giving cake to everyone. Just kidding. But we will be offering a webinar that will take a deeper dive into the trends. Keep your eye out for an announcement soon. (Sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss it.)

But first, let’s look back at a handful of the trends we got right—and the ones that slipped by us—in our 2019 Force for Good Forecast.

What We Got Right

The 2020 Opportunity

What we said: “A string of events in 2020––including the sustainability-themed Tokyo Summer Olympics––will bring unprecedented attention to environmental challenges and the role businesses can play in tackling them.”

What happened: Japan, looking to showcase its sustainability leadership ahead of the Olympic games, outpaced Europe and the U.S. in adopting the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCSFD) framework. As of September 2019, 172 Japanese companies, including Sony, Mazda Motors, and Nomura, have signed on.

The C-Suite Steps Up

What we said: “As brand activism comes into its own, companies will take bolder stands on a wider array of issues in 2019––from transgender rights to equal pay.”

What happened: Plenty. Here’s a sampling:

Luna Bar’s “Someday“ anounced their stand on the gender pay gap.

In May, dozens of brands, including Nike, Hilton, Salesforce, and Dell, spoke out against a proposed set of anti-LGBTQ bills in Tenessee’s state legislature.
In response to legislation that would effectively ban abortion in states like Georgia and Alabama, more than 300 CEOs signed an open letter in support of reproductive health care.
In July, Proctor & Gamble joined Luna Bar and donated funds to the U.S. Women’s soccer team to close the gender pay gap.

Plastics Get Personal

What we said: “Armed with data and citizen science, activists won’t be afraid to name names in 2019. Campaigners will target specific companies with highly public campaigns in the coming year, asking them to move away from single-use products.”

What happened: In its recent brand audit, the Break Free from Plastic campaign named Nestlé as one of the top contributors to marine plastic debris. Last spring, Greenpeace activists accompanied a 65-foot-long plastic monster to the company’s global headquarters in Switzerland. Similar plastic sculptures popped up in anti-Nestlé demonstrations around the world. The global day of action called on the company to end its reliance on single-use plastics.

In 2019, Greenpeace campaigned against Nestlé’s use of single-use plastics using plastic monsters, such as this one in Cologne, Germany. © Marten van Dijl / Greenpeace

Science-based Targets

What we said: “Stakeholders will increasingly expect science- and context-based targets. By 2020, they’ll become the gold standard.”

What happened: Pretty much that. Science-based targets––and related climate commitments––were everywhere in 2019, from Ikea, to Nestlé, to Microsoft.

What We Missed

Here’s a handful of trends that we either didn’t call (but should have), or that we included in our 2019 Forecast and they, well, kind of fizzled out.

Trade Associations Shed Members

Our team considered including this trend, but given the mass exodus from ALEC and GMA in previous years, opted to nix it in favor of more prescient trends––but we may have passed it over too quickly:

In April, Royal Dutch Shell, citing irreconcilable (climate) differences, said it would part ways with the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.
Three months later, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo announced that they would quit the Plastics Industry Association. SC Johnson and General Motors followed suit. The companies faced pressure from activists and investors to exit their trade association, which has come under scrutiny for opposing plastic bag bans. (Note: Our plastics trend did call out investor pressure to rethink membership in the Plastics Industry Association, so we didn’t totally miss the mark on that front).
In October, mining giant BHP faced a shareholder resolution to ditch any associations off-side with the Paris Agreement.

The 2020 edition of our Forecast will detail how we see this trend evolving in the new decade––be sure to stay tuned if this trend piques your interest.

Employee Activism

Employee walkouts at Google were one data point in a growing trend that we expect will continue in 2020.

Here’s another example of a trend we considered, but that ultimately didn’t make the cut. In 2019 we saw a lot of action on this front, from employee walkouts at Wayfair, Walmart, and Google to open letters from employees of Facebook, Amazon, and WeWork.

At Future 500, we’re all about continuous learning: 2020’s Forecast will dive into where we see this trend going next. (Hint––it’s not going away).

So Long to the Quid Pro Quo

Early 2019 saw some heated grassroots opposition to local governments doling out tax incentives to companies when they wanted to move to the neighborhood (remember Amazon’s abandoned NYC proposal?). We thought we’d see a higher bar, and more opposition, for companies trying to set up shop. But then again, maybe corporate leaders followed our advice to engage with local stakeholders.

A proposed Amazon headquarters in New York City prompted local backlash in early 2019.

The Slow Burn

Sometimes we call it a little too early, before an issue really takes off. Alternatively, we often identify trends that unfold over multiple years.

On carbon pricing, we said that environmental-justice activists could potentially throw a wrench into a nascent growing consensus on carbon pricing. This conflict didn’t materialize in 2019, but the underlying dynamics are still there.

On shifting theories of change, we said that growing prosperity in the Global South would cause western NGOs to rethink their campaign tactics. There were some major campaigns in Asian and African countries (like this palm oil campaign from Mighty Earth for example), but we see this as a multi-year trend that will continue to unfold in novel ways.

We anticipate that the #MeToo movement will continue to raise the bar for diversity and inclusion in 2020.

On broken promises, we said that a slew of missed 2020 targets––from deforestation to plastic waste––would have major implications for the credibility of the corporate sustainability movement. That dynamic did pan out but it will only get bigger in 2020.

On diversity and inclusion, we said that the #MeToo movement would transcend sexual conduct policy and elevate expectations for workplace equality across the board. We weren’t wrong: Investors increasingly asked companies for transparency on diversity and inclusion metrics, and 72 CEOS pledged to fill half their leadership roles with women by 2030. But this trend hasn’t quite run its course just yet. Expect more of the same in 2020.

This is just a sample platter of the trends we think we got right and wrong last year––there are plenty more in our 2019 Force for Good Forecast (not to mention previous year’s reports!). Check them out and let us know what you think.

Follow us on LinkedIn or subscribe to our newsletter to see what’s on the horizon for 2020––and ensure you don’t miss our webinar, where we’ll unpack the year’s most important advocacy trends. Cheers to 2020!

Future 500 is a non-profit consultancy that builds trust between companies, advocates, investors, and philanthropists to advance business as a force for good. Based in San Francisco, we specialize in stakeholder engagement, sustainability strategy, and responsible communication. From stakeholder mapping to materiality assessments, partnership development to activist engagement, target setting to CSR reporting strategy, we empower our partners with the skills and relationships needed to systemically tackle today's most pressing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) challenges.

Want to learn more? Reach out any time.

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