Brazilian is more skeptical about the sustainable agenda of companies, says research

Brazilians are more skeptical about the degree of commitment of companies to sustainability. This is shown in a survey carried out by Instituto Akatu in partnership with GlobeScan consultancy.

According to the study, consumers’ perception of companies’ compliance with their socio-environmental responsibilities dropped across the board between 2020 and 2021. The assessment worsened in all 19 productive sectors analyzed, with nine of them having a negative result.

The segment with the worst performance was oil and gasoline, which went from -13% in 2020 to -47% this year, followed by mining (-43%) and chemical industry (-39%). The calculation considers the balance of positive responses minus negative ones.

The survey was conducted online, between June and July this year, with approximately one thousand Brazilians.

Some sectors had better scores, but saw the assessment of their commitment to the environment and society drop more than 20 percentage points.

One of the examples is the pharmaceutical industry, which rose from 41% last year to 19% in 2021. A similar case happened with the technology and computers segment, which remains positive in the ranking, but fell from 38% to 13%.

The study considered two hypotheses to explain the general drop in the assessment made by Brazilian consumers. The first concerns the population’s greater demand for companies’ socio-environmental responsibilities, especially after 2020, the year in which the corporate world was more active due to the pandemic.

Another hypothesis is that companies would, in fact, have presented an inferior sustainable performance in 2021.

“Consumer expectations grew in the pandemic and companies did less in 2021. This caused a gap in terms of compliance with social and environmental responsibility”, says Helio Mattar, CEO of Instituto Akatu and columnist for Sheet.

According to him, the data are interesting, as they show that Brazilians are paying attention and expect a significant contribution from the private sector.

“Companies are seen as very powerful and, in return, they should take responsibility for social and environmental issues.”

The drop in consumer confidence coincides with the boom in ESG (good environmental, social and governance practices) in the corporate world. In the director’s view, the two things can be related.

Mattar says there is a huge variety of topics that companies need to address on the ESG agenda. This makes their sustainable agenda necessarily diversified, which can influence the skepticism of Brazilians.

“the perception [sobre o compromisso sustentável] it falls when consumer vulnerability is not so great, as it happens in this second year of the pandemic, and when companies make fragmented investments in ESG, and no longer concentrated in one area or another”, he says.

The survey also compared the perception of Brazilians with 18 other countries. According to the survey, the evaluation here tends to be more negative than the global average.

“In Brazil, the balance of 15 or more percentage points lower than the average for countries in several sectors is noteworthy, possibly due to greater expectations of social and environmental performance by the Brazilian consumer. Examples are: agriculture, technology, banks, clothing, furniture and automobiles”, highlights the study.

Compared to the global average, Brazilians also feel a greater need for support from companies. About 50% say that the lack of contribution from the private sector is an impediment to living a more sustainable life. Worldwide, this proportion is 34%.

For Helio Mattar, another interesting finding of the research is about the high demand of the population. He says that respondents were asked how organizations could help them live sustainable lives — and all topics were tagged.

Approximately two-thirds of Brazilians said that the 18 actions listed are very useful, which range from helping to save water and energy to making products that reduce the impact of climate change and ensure the well-being of animals.

“The consumer is clearly saying: ‘the company is powerful, it’s already shown what it can do, so come and do it, because that’s what we’re waiting for’.”