ESG has been battered from all sides and risks losing meaning. A human-centred vision for what comes next.
The notion of ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) has, over the past decade, come to dominate how corporations, investors, and public agencies talk about responsibility, risk, and impact. Yet, even as ESG has matured, it is increasingly criticised for being too mechanical, too reductionist, too detached from human purpose.
In 2025, we stand at an inflection point: ESG must be reimagined not as an external add-on or checkbox, but as a human-centred framework to guide ethical, resilient, and meaningful decision making.
Why ESG Needs Reimagining
1. Critiques, backlash, and legitimacy gaps
ESG is under pressure from multiple directions. In the U.S., shareholder support for ESG resolutions plunged to record lows in 2024. Institutional critics argue ESG has become a political lightning rod, conflated with ideology or greenwashing. Investors point to systemic problems: incomplete data, methodological opacity, rating divergence, and weak accountability.
2. The limits of metrics without meaning
Much of ESG practice today revolves around metrics, rankings, and disclosures. But metrics - especially when divorced from purpose - can drive perverse incentives. Firms may prioritise improvements in score over substantive change. Social dimensions (like equality, human thriving, and cohesion) are among the hardest to capture quantitatively and thus among the most neglected. ESG must evolve from being a scoreboard to being a compass.
3. Technologies alone won't rescue ESG
Many hope that AI, big data, and digital tools will solve ESG's measurement and reporting challenges. But technology is not neutral. If we embed human values poorly, we may perpetuate bias, opacity, or disconnect from lived realities. Technology should augment and surface human perspectives - not replace them.
A Human-Centred Vision for ESG
Purpose-anchored decision making. Every ESG decision should begin with one question: for whom, and toward what purpose? Not "how much carbon can we shave off by 2030," but "how do we improve human wellbeing, justice, and resilience in context?"
Relational, participatory governance. Rather than top-down metrics, ESG must open space for stakeholder engagement - co-design, participatory decision making, feedback loops, and relational accountability.
Dynamic narratives + metrics. Numbers matter - but stories matter more in activating human empathy and legitimacy. ESG needs hybrid systems: narratives, qualitative assessments, case studies, and metrics working in tandem.
Ethical margins and humility. Humans make trade-offs. A human-centred ESG allows for ethical margins: where value judgements are explicit, trade-offs are surfaced, and humility is accepted as a guide.
Technology as enabler, not decider. AI and data systems should serve transparency, inclusivity, and explainability. Use tech to democratise access to ESG intelligence - not centralise it.
What Leaders and Practitioners Can Do Now
- Reassess ESG purpose - clarify why ESG matters in your organisation
- Elevate qualitative methods - commission case studies, embed ethnographic listening
- Democratise governance - invite stakeholders into ESG committees or co-design processes
- Audit your scoring & models - reveal bias or distortion
- Invest in tech, but with guardrails - explainable AI, audit trails, no black-box decisions
Final Reflection
ESG as a convention has served an important transitional purpose: making the non-financial visible. But at its core, sustainability is not about disclosures - it is about human thriving, justice, and the interdependence of people and planet. The question is not whether ESG will change - but whether we'll root it again in the messy, vibrant world of human agency.
What would ESG look like if every decision started with people first?