Business leaders urged to prepare for the "material business risk" of political pressures
A new report from the Business and Democracy Commission warns that populism, policy failure, and disinformation are now a material business risk for leaders looking to secure long-term resilience and legitimacy in an unstable, polarised landscape
A new, independent report from the Business and Democracy Commission warns that political turbulence has become a direct and material threat to business stability, reputation, and performance and must be managed strategically by corporate leaders.
'Navigating Growing Political Pressures' - supported by Jericho Chambers, Ipsos, and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) - finds that the traditional boundaries between commerce and public life are blurring, creating immediate risks to a company’s reputation, operations, and licence to operate.
Based on interviews with leading corporate figures and real-life case studies, the report outlines six risks for business leaders if the relationship between business and democracy breaks down. These include rising populism, unstable markets, unpredictable regulation, rapid political change and higher reputational exposure. It concludes with a practical framework designed to help businesses navigate this socio-political environment and protect long-term resilience.
The Way Forward
To help businesses navigate these turbulent waters, the Commission’s final report offers strategic, actionable insights based on interviews with corporate leaders, with case studies to highlight examples of best practice. Core recommendations include:
- Alignment with core values – Identify what teams and key stakeholders really believe in and want. This demands open and honest internal soul searching.
- Focus on commercial authenticity – Don’t stray too far from what you do or your organisation’s core purpose. It must be authentic.
- Utilise internal wisdom – Leverage the huge wisdom of staff and stakeholders – who want you to succeed – and use them as sounding boards, feedback mechanisms and advocates.
- Narratives over numbers – have a strategic story about the when, why and how of your engagement in public and political issues.
- Foster citizenship, internally and externally – Use internal strategy groups to source valuable insights, and encourage workforce engagement in civic matters to strengthen democratic understanding.
- Proactive transparency – Embrace voluntary disclosures which align with your business values to build trust with stakeholders.
- Transparent lobbying practices – Ensure all lobbying activity is transparent and aligns with your values.
- Incorporate political risks in governance – Put these political risks at the heart of governance decisions and reviews, with oversight from the highest levels of leadership.
As this report demonstrates, in today’s highly charged political environment, reputational risk can no longer be managed reactively or left to chance. It is now a strategic imperative for boards to ensure they have the right expertise in place to guide businesses through sustained and challenging uncertainty. The findings highlight that political turbulence is a material business risk. To protect their licence to operate, leaders must move beyond ad hoc responses and embed robust and good governance practices and a coordinated approach to political engagement. Those that do will be better positioned to navigate a polarised landscape and build long-term resilience.
Organisations are looking for ways to navigate a state of persistent turbulence, where political, social and economic shocks converge all too often. Rather than simply identifying the problem, this report seeks to provide frameworks, that, if followed, can help businesses anticipate and absorb those shocks, retain trust, and turn legitimacy into a competitive advantage.
The report shows just how vulnerable political pressures can make organisations feel – the demands are often conflicting, messy and hard to respond to with certainty. What makes a difference is when leaders are able to listen, involve their people and work from a clear, shared understanding of what truly matters to the organisation. That approach doesn’t remove the difficulty, but it does strengthen legitimacy and helps businesses stay steady in a fast-moving political landscape.
Chaired by Sir Ian Cheshire, the Commission brings together senior figures from business, academia, and civil society to explore how leaders can strengthen business resilience, navigate today’s volatile political and cultural landscape, and secure their licence to operate in the years ahead.
About the Chartered Institute of Public Relations
Founded in 1948, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) is the world's only Royal Chartered professional body for public relations practitioners with over 11,000 members.
The CIPR advances professionalism in public relations by making its members accountable to their employers and the public through a code of conduct and searchable public register, setting standards through training, qualifications, awards and the production of best practice and skills guidance, facilitating Continuing Professional Development (CPD), and awarding Chartered Public Relations Practitioner status (Chart.PR).
About the Business & Democracy Commission
Set up by Jericho (acting as Secretariat), Ipsos and the CIPR in 2023 as an independent, non-partisan project, the Business & Democracy Commission set out to examine why companies were coming under increasing pressure to react to political and cultural demands, and identify how firms and organisations could navigate and negotiate these complexities.
The Commission is Chaired by Sir Ian Cheshire, and we are fortunate to have a group of Commissioners who bring a wealth of expertise and experience to the table including Mete Coban, CEO, My Life My Say; Margaret Heffernan, Author & Entrepreneur; Robin Hodess, Strategy Lead, The B Team; Baroness Denise Kingsmill, Labour Peer and Member of the Board of Directors of Inditex; Alastair McCapra, Chief Executive, CIPR; Thomas Fife-Schaw, Managing Director, Ipsos Corporate Reputation; Ruth Yeoman, Fellow, Kellogg College, University of Oxford; and Anthony Zacharzewski, President, The Democratic Society.