Resilience: Sustaining Corporate Momentum through Turbulent Times, lessons for the world from the United States’ experience

2025-06-26

Emilie Jones | Senior Sustainability Consultant

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Political, economic, and environmental turbulence creates an increasingly uncertain landscape for corporations making long term investment planning difficult. It is tempting to simply withdraw from significant investment decisions until there is more certainty, but such corporate paralysis can be lethal in an inevitably shifting landscape. The US is more volatile than any other major market now, particularly with regards to corporate sustainability. US corporations are responding by pursuing resilience: the ability to withstand risk without contributing. This article describes four key learnings that Japan and other markets can take from the US experience before they, too, are subject to impacts from environmental turbulence.

Paralysis Risk

The price of rice, tariffs and trade agreements, missile launches and famines, the global landscape is riddled with ever darker news¹. For corporations in every industry, no matter where you look – economic, political, environmental – business continuity risks are intensifying and compounding upon one another. Billowing out from them is the true cancer for any industry – uncertainty.

In an uncertain landscape, many businesses act much like bears preparing for winter. They do not reinvest their earnings back into the business, preferring to keep a cash base at hand to be prepared for anything. But companies are not like bears. Companies are like sharks. They must keep moving to survive.

While pulling back may seem like the “safe” option, in reality, it paralyzes a company. Corporations are not the only ones feeling the effects of uncertain times. Consumer and client preferences are in constant flux. But for paralyzed companies, investments in new services and products are halted. Core machinery grows outdated. Hiring freezes and cuts create a “lean” structure at the cost of institutional knowledge and creativity. The true risk of uncertainty is in paralyzed companies becoming unable to respond to changing consumer demand.

United States of Uncertainty

No market currently quite compares to the United States in uncertainty. Near daily shifts in critical economic policy undercut any mid-term business plan faster than they can be revised. Repeated short term holds on major changes to tariffs leaves executives unable to create a reasonable picture of the future – with or without tariffs in the long term, and when they may be imposed in the short. Rapid dismantlement of long-held institutions creates questions of which existing systems may still be relied upon as pillars of business growth. Political backlash spilling over to corporate impact has companies policing their research, disclosures, and priorities for politically volatile issues including ESG, sustainability, and environmental considerations (despite the best efforts of the international scientific community).

Under the previous presidential administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) financial regulatory body, issued a federal greenhouse gas reporting mandate known colloquially as The Climate Rule, or formally as The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate Related Disclosures for Investors.² Almost immediately, the act was challenged in the courts and implementation suspended pending the judge’s ruling. ³Within the first 100 days of the new administration taking office the presidentially appointed acting SEC chairman led a vote to end the legal defense of the regulation. ⁴ The act now languishes somewhere between law and enforcement: not officially repealed, but with very little indication it will be implemented.

Sustainable disclosure is not the only target of nationwide ESG pull-backs. Under the Biden administration, an amendment was made to the Investment Duties rule permitting retirement fund managers to consider ESG risks as financially material in their investment decisions. That rule was also rapidly challenged in the courts and is now under review for major revision.⁵ Meanwhile, outside of legal and legislative activity, the socio-political “culture wars” prevalent in US culture have increasingly polarize public discourse around ESG topics. Staunch anti-ESG rhetoric from the Presidential office reinforces a corporate position dismissing or degrading ESG activities, which are at risk of losing federal grants and subsidies. The fate of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a measure that promotes significant renewable energy infrastructure investment with tax incentives, is still uncertain.

One could think that the US ESG trend is clear. Companies should redirect their investments in reporting, data governance, and sustainability projects. However, the United States is not a consolidated market. In the absence of overriding federal legislation, each state constitutes its own market conditions, including regulatory environment. The state of California alone supports the fourth largest GDP in the world, larger even than that of Japan.⁶⁷ Last year the state legislature passed two bills which require environmental reporting in addition to existing environmental regulations. While the federal government is retracting their ESG and environmental regulations, the Californian government is doubling down on theirs, with other states following suite. The state of New York voted New York’s Environmental Rights amendment into law in 2021.⁸ Now citizens of are pushing New York to fulfil commitments to publish carbon emission regulations.⁹

Adding to the complexities of navigating a fragmented regulatory landscape, companies who sell into the EU must now align to CSRD and CSDDD to maintain market access. CEO’s and board chairs must now ask hard questions on whether or not the European market is worth the reporting investment.

Companies are caught in a reporting, investing, and marketing middle ground. Aligning to one position will inherently alienate the other. Federal trends pull away from environmental risk and responsibility reporting while leading states are stepping up to fill that gap with fragmented regulations. Amid political, economic, and regulatory shifts companies are posed to give into the paralysis of uncertainty.

The Environment Doesn’t Care: Consequences are Here

While societal shifts are subject to the inclinations of people in power and can be changed rapidly as they desire, the ecological systems we live in are beyond such control. No matter how uncertain political and economic trends may be, environmental consequences are very certainly felt. Fires, floods, droughts, air pollution, heat waves, tornados, hurricanes, water stress, sea water inundation, coastline loss, soil degradation, blizzards – the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation are no longer a future risk. In the past five years, the US has experienced all these events, with devastating consequences.

Texas experienced the cost of neglecting environmental risk in the 2021 Winter Storm Uri. It had long focused on providing the most and the cheapest electricity to its residents, all while dismissing reliability concerns. A freak blizzard struck Texas in 2021, knocking out the electricity grid across the state as thermal power plants shuttered, natural gas wellheads froze over, and vulnerable transformers were iced over.¹⁰Years of abundant and cheap electricity had led to power hungry systems. When the grid went down, water treatment and transportation infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, heating and food distribution ground to a sudden halt.

Colorado and the four corners states are experiencing the consequences of environmental risk blindness every year as the water recedes. In the Colorado river basin, four states all demand a share of the water. Some for agriculture, some for drinking water, and some for electricity generation. Years of excessive demand have devastated natural regulatory systems that preserve the quality and quantity of water, with that demand only growing with the economic and population expansion of the area. Climate shifts lead to smaller snow packs, which act as slow release water storage, and increasing rate and intensity of droughts further decreasing water availability. As the states fight over who gets more, the ecosystem further degrades – leaving less for everyone involved.

Legacy storm water drains in Virginia dump raw sewage into water systems when they are unable to manage the rate of rainfall. Increasing populations beyond the system’s design capacity, coupled with increasing frequency of intense rainfall events results in toxic sewage contaminating the same riverways and beaches children play at. Meanwhile, extensive impermeable hard infrastructure prevents water from being absorbed through the soil system back into aquifer ground water systems, creating an area of dual water risks – undersupply and overabundance.

Perhaps the most well-known case study for environmental consequences, though, is California. Years of no-touch conservation coupled with water resource mismanagement and explosive population growth, enhanced by droughts made more frequent and intense due to climate change, have created the ideal circumstances for wildfires to blaze throughout the state at the smallest spark.

The cost of environmental decline extends far beyond storms and headline events. Rather than stay in a devastated area, many choose to move to safer havens resulting in migration away from areas of heavy impact, leading to population shifts further exacerbating existing systems. Migration and inequal recovery opportunities, coupled with the collapse of societal infrastructure such as energy and water, create deep societal rifts contributing to political polarization as people look for someone to blame. And as seen in the US, political shifts can contribute to economic turbulence, further paralyzing companies.

For corporations in the United States, reporting requirements may be uncertain, but the consequences of not preparing for environmental risks is certain and immediate. Companies have no choice but to respond to these very real climate consequences even if the ESG investment and reporting narrative is uncertain. Their response? Shift the narrative. When everything is unpredictable, focus on being able to withstand any risk. Focus on resilience.

Paralysis to Performance: Lessons for Global Actors

The US’ example offers a glimpse into a wide breadth of environmental consequences. But these consequences are in no way limited to country borders. Heatstroke, typhoons, landslides, fall disappearing, Japan is increasingly feeling the burden of environmental decline. Within the next 10 years these impacts will become critical risks. In a shifting economic and international landscape, what lessons can Japanese corporations learn from their American counterparts?

1. In lieu of certainty, look for resilience.

Regulatory pull back along with increasing environmental consequences are pushing companies to prioritize results over messaging. It is more important to address the root causes of risk rather than align to the latest international initiative.

Resilience blends the responsiveness of adaptation with the preemptive approach of mitigation. In an environmental context, it means to prepare for the impact of environmental consequences while also reducing the risk by addressing the underlying causes, ex reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In the end, resilience is the ability to endure without catastrophic effect, meaning the ability to sustain corporate success through changing circumstances. Resilience is the heart of sustainability.

2. Prioritize real results over appealing messaging.

This requires a mindset shift from the existing reporting-centric paradigm. The mandate of sustainability teams must shift from public messaging campaigns and report preparation to critical business continuity planning. Rather than working most closely with marketing teams, sustainability team members should spend their time in meetings with finance and planning committees. Sustainability programs should be given the same scrutiny as business development investments, with the caveat that these investments are going towards stabilizing the core business domains.

To achieve impactful results, difficult trade-offs may need to be made. Business domains overexposed to risk may need to pivot, alternate product lines and services may need to be developed, cost vs profit will need to be considered on a multi-year timeline rather than quarterly. Some investments may have no direct business impact but serve to shore up supply chain vulnerabilities. Throughout all these conversations, the most important aspect is to ensure every angle is considered. Even though some aspects will inherently need to be deprioritized, it is critical that the trade-offs are well understood and complete. Which requires considerations beyond current limited priority areas.

3. True resilience requires expanded considerations.

Action plans must consider various environmental impact areas (biodiversity, water, climate, agriculture, etc) to ensure a solution in one area does not result in the overall risk profile becoming more extreme.

The first response is to abandon carbon tunnel vision. For the past 20 years the conversation in the sustainability space has centered predominantly on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. While a critical piece of the corporate environmental risk landscape, it is far from the only one. Yet the discourse continues to focus on climate change in what Jan Konietzo termed “Carbon Tunnel Vision”. Funding follows focus, as seen in Image 1. Investments have largely focused on climate change mitigation and adaption. Biodiversity and nature risks constitute as great or greater a threat on a societal scale and yet are only now starting to be widely systematically considered in a corporate risk assessment. Climate change contributes to biodiversity degradation and vice versa. Considering one without the other risks undermining any risk mitigation or adaptation plan with unintended consequences.

Image 1: Carbon Tunnel Vision¹¹

Image 2: Publications and Funding for Climate vs Biodiversity¹²

Rather than prioritizing one or the other, in a results focused environment US corporations are combining nature and climate teams under a “resilience” umbrella. Mutual consideration allows for balanced prioritization. Solution design to reduce physical risk adopts consideration of environmental impact beyond required or recommended environmental impact assessments (EIA). Traditional “hard” infrastructure solutions with design limitations such as levy walls can be compared to emerging “soft” infrastructure solutions with carbon storage potential such as marsh bed regeneration, addressing immediate risk impacts while in part reducing a company’s contribution to underlying risk factors.

Image 3 : Coupled Impacts Biodiversity vs Climate¹³

Research shows actions taken to promote biodiversity contribute to climate change reduction, while actions to mitigate or adapt to climate change are as likely to cause biodiversity loss as not. A wider consideration of real impact allows for proper cost/benefit balancing.

4. Start early or get caught paying for recovery investing in resilience.

Transitioning a stagnant company into a resilient one takes time. If corporations wait until the environmental impacts are severe enough to be constantly recognized as in the US, then they will find themselves paying to restore business activities while also needing to invest in pivoting to resilient systems. Paralysis in the face of increasing risks is the greatest threat. Acting before risks are realized is critical to ensure smooth business continuity in a turbulent world.

In summary, the risk landscape is changing. It will not return to the same patterns companies have followed for decades. Long projected environmental consequences of climate change and biodiversity loss are now being realized. To sustain business continuity, companies can look to how US corporations are working to adapt to their own complex market changes. Companies need to: accept the uncertainty, focus on results, defy silos, and start early. Doing so builds corporate resilience – the ability to endure market risks be they economic, political, or environmental.

If you or your corporation are eager to establish resilience and are interested in expanding your understanding of other environmental risks outside of climate change and Net Zero commitments, the first step is expanding your awareness of environmental risks. At Codo Advisory we can help you start your journey towards resilience with educational workshops on the systemic impacts of human actions on environmental biodiversity, the environmental impacts of digital expansion, supply chain risks from environmental consequences, and much more.