Business leaders have a choice to make: retreat, continue and stay silent, or practice progressive resistance. Across the world, social progress is under attack. From growing anti-immigrant sentiments in Europe, to crackdowns on diversity initiatives in the United States, to the repression of human rights defenders in Southeast Asia, the deconstruction of social progress is now a global trend.
For businesses, the erosion of social progress is a risk to employee loyalty, innovation, supply chain stability, consumer trust and profitability. It’s also an opportunity to lead by tying social progress directly to business success. Around the world, the evidence for the value of social progress is conclusive:
- McKinsey’s global research found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to experience above-average profitability.
- Climate-resilient companies in Southeast Asia are already outperforming peers facing climate-related operational disruptions.
- In Africa, businesses investing in community infrastructure and workforce upskilling report lower employee turnover and deeper market penetration.
When businesses champion progress, they aren’t sacrificing profit: They’re future-proofing themselves.
Progressive Resistance In Action
For business leaders everywhere, progressive resistance means taking deliberate action to protect and expand social progress, even when governments or groups push back. Here’s how global leaders can embed progressive resistance into their strategies—with examples from different regions:
1. Build Cross-Sector Partnerships for Social Progress
As a part of its Commitment to Life initiative, Natura &Co has formed alliances with Indigenous organizations and environmental NGOs to protect the Amazon rainforest. By aligning environmental and social goals with local communities, the company reduces supply chain risk while strengthening human rights.
Progressive Resistance: Form alliances with civil society, Indigenous leaders, human rights defenders, and climate advocates to actively advance social progress—and ensure your business stands for something larger than profit.
2. Use Capital as a Tool of Resistance
In Europe, asset managers have created fossil-free investment portfolios that actively exclude companies contributing to climate destruction. At the same time, they are steering capital into green innovation funds.
Progressive Resistance: Develop an Ethical Capital Strategy that screens investments, procurement, and partnerships for human rights, equity, and climate impact—and report on your progress publicly.
3. Embed Social Progress into Core Business Operations
In South Africa, Woolworths Holdings has recognized that organizational diversity and inclusion are important for enabling effective delivery of its business strategy. As a Group, it is committed to non-discrimination, non-sexism, and non-racism across all its policies, practices, and daily operations.
Progressive Resistance: Tie executive compensation and operational KPIs directly to social progress metrics like equity in leadership, emissions reductions, community investment, and supplier diversity.
4. Reclaim the Narrative of Social Progress
In India, Mahindra Group’s former chairman Anand Mahindra has been vocal about business’s responsibility to fight climate change and invest in women’s economic empowerment. His public stance has framed social progress as core to national economic growth, helping shift the business narrative.
Progressive Resistance: Actively communicate the business case for social progress in every market where you operate. Use your voice as a CEO, corporate and consumer communications, and investor relations to reframe progress as profitability.
5. Build Social Infrastructure
In Bangladesh, garment sector leaders worked with NGOs to establish worker safety initiatives, filling the gap left by weak labor protections. These efforts improved factory safety and helped restore international buyer confidence after the Rana Plaza disaster.
Progressive Resistance: Build community resilience programs where you operate—whether it’s through direct investments in climate adaptation, healthcare access, education, or worker safety initiatives.
6. Empower Employee-Led Social Progress
In the United States, the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action at colleges and universities, have led to conservative groups making similar arguments about corporations and targeting initiatives such as employee resource groups and hiring practices that prioritize historically marginalized groups. However, companies such as Costo are asserting that their diversity programs comply with the law, and are sticking with diversity efforts.
Progressive Resistance: Set up global employee-led social impact councils and give them real authority to audit, recommend, and publish your company’s social impact performance.
7. Embrace Radical Transparency
In Australia, mining leader BHP publishes independent human rights assessments of its operations, including critical feedback from Indigenous communities and civil society watchdogs.
Progressive Resistance: Commit to radical transparency—publish data on your social impact, human rights record, and climate performance in every market where you operate.
8. Reframe Social Progress as Competitive Advantage
Many companies have found that success is not only measured through profit but also by contributing to social progress. Doing so boosts innovation, can increase brand loyalty and strengthen financial growth. More than that, it can transforme “companies into competitive powerhouses that can attract motivated employees and rise to new heights of efficient operations,” wrote Jeffery Bartel in Forbes.
Progressive Resistance: Stop treating social impact as solely reputation management—make it a market advantage. Link progress to risk reduction, talent attraction, supply chain resilience, and product innovation in your global investor and customer messaging.
Social Progress: A Global Call to Action for Business Leaders
Whether you’re a multinational CEO, a regional family business leader, or the founder of a fast-growing startup, the message is clear: the future of business depends on the future of social progress. The most successful businesses over the next decade will be those that:
- Defend human rights, equity, and climate action—even when governments don’t.
- Invest in social infrastructure that benefits both communities and business stability.
- Embed social progress into their business models so that backsliding becomes impossible.
The companies that retreat into silence will lose the trust of their workforce, customers, investors, and communities. The companies that lead progressive resistance will set the gold standard for leadership in the 21st century.In every market, every sector, and every leadership team, the question is the same:
Will you retreat – or will you practice progressive resistance? I think the future belongs to social progress and to the resisters.
Paul Klein is the founder of Impakt and the Impakt Foundation for Social Change. He is the author of Change for Good: An Action-Oriented Approach for Businesses to Benefit from Solving the World’s Most Urgent Social Problems.
