Paul Washington of The Conference Board: Company Responses & Next Steps 4/20/2023 (3/3)

On April 20, 2023 we spoke with Paul Washington of The Conference Board to explore “Avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons: Can CPR Help Improve the Political Environment for Business & Society?”

Chief legal officers and government relations executives are finding it difficult to conduct long-term planning and investment in the current US political environment, where a combination of political polarization and extremely close elections increases the risk of wide swings in government policy over time. In addition, companies often find themselves play defense as their political activities—including lobbying and political contributions—are under exacting scrutiny by employees, investors, the media, and others.

In this module, we explore:

-How are companies responding to the findings in the report? What are you hearing?

-How would you encourage companies to think about their choices now? Are there any pitfalls you are concerned about and how would you invite companies to avoid them?

The Corporate Political Responsibility Taskforce (CPRT)’s Expert Dialogues are in-depth, recorded conversations with academic experts, stakeholder advocates and business practitioners to provide our members and other CPR champions with the expertise and context they need to develop principled, proactive CPR strategies. We invite those interested in a constructive, non-partisan, principles-based discussion.

Paul Washington, the Executive Director of the Environmental, Social & Governance Center at the Conference Board joins us to explore the findings of their recent report, Avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons: How to Improve the Political Environment for Business. Paul’s career includes extensive work in public service at the federal, state, and local levels, as well as extensive experience with corporate ESG.

The full transcript for this module is available here. 

Keywords: #CorporatePoliticalResponsibility #CPR_Trends #CivicInstitutions #LongTermValue