As 2015 draws to a close, the growing and urgent rallying cry from people around the world to address critical global issues has reached a fever pitch. From star-studded events like the Global Citizen Festival (headlined by Beyoncé, Coldplay, Stephen Colbert and others to take a stance against poverty), to the hundreds of thousands of individuals who took to the streets just two weeks ago at 2,300 separate climate marches, there’s no denying a heightened level of awareness, activism and enlightenment around the world’s acute social and environmental issues.
And companies are taking note. Not only are business leaders taking a seat at the table to address these issues, but many of them are leading the way. Consistent with the aspirations of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the conversation in Paris at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP21, companies are convening and collaborating in novel ways to reach a scale and impact we haven’t seen before.
As 2015 comes to a close, Cone Communications has evaluated a year’s-worth of corporate social responsibility (CSR) tracking to share the top 10 trends of 2015.