Over the past months when we have engaged with corporate leaders in Pakistan on bringing ESG on to their board and business agenda, we are confronted with many forms of pushback and one of the most frequent pushbacks we get is ‘it’s not our problem’ or that ‘we didn’t create this problem so why should we solve it.”

The benefits of appointing Independent Directors have been debated globally and are very well established. Ironically, family businesses who most strongly oppose the addition of such directors may, in fact, be the biggest beneficiaries due to the facility of fulfilling the skill gap on the Board and catering to the issue of succession that arises in the 2nd and 3rd generation when most businesses start falling apart.

A significant number of Board members are still questioning the buzz around the integration of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations into core business practices and reporting, writing it off as a current market trend with the assumption that it will soon be passe and disappear as fast as it appeared. Highly unlikely.

A little thing called Chat GPT was released to the public on November 30, 2022. At first glance, it hardly seemed distinguishable from one of the many chatbots or search engines. Only when one typed a query into it, and witnessed the answer, that it dawned that it was, indeed, the beginning of a new era.

When boards and leadership sit down to make long term strategies and plans, they must put these through stress tests against the rising risks and opportunities that are forming part of the global business ecosystem, particularly those related to environment and social equity.