Making the Green Transition Work for People and the Economy 2025

As shapers of the global economy and key actors in the climate transition, the shifting socioeconomic context poses a unique set of risks and opportunities to businesses. The changing global context is important to corporates in all sectors and economies, directly shaping the environment in which they execute strategy. In particular, this changing environment is relevant to corporate climate strategies, often characterized by long-term outlooks, transformative operational shifts and governance implications. In advanced economies, corporate climate action that reinforces socioeconomic challenges could pose a range of risks to businesses, undermining resilience, reputation and, potentially, long-term shareholder value. In developing and emerging markets, where corporates may be providers of essential goods and services, this new external context reinforces their role, especially in cases where sectoral transformations affect specific geographies. Across contexts, those businesses which move first to support positive socioeconomic outcomes through climate action may capitalize on benefits and yield co-benefits through novel business models. The changing global context underscores the need for climate strategies to be aligned with wider socioeconomic priorities. To succeed against this new backdrop, climate action will need to place people and their lived experiences at the front and centre. This means pursuing climate strategies that prioritize economic co-benefits, drive local value creation, and align with national economic security considerations, thereby maximizing opportunities for people and the economy. Corporate climate commitments are growing – and critical to meeting goals. Businesses around the world are increasingly committed to addressing their impact on the climate. In 2025, over 8,700 companies have set climate targets validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) – with over 2,000 consistent with net zero – nearly double the 4,205 targets validated by 2023. 41 These commitments represent roughly 30% of global GHG emissions, a share that is set to rise over the coming decades. 42 Given these trends, climate ambition is evidently central to many businesses’ long-term strategies, with far-reaching implications. Corporate transitions may require asset and process transformation, supply chain restructuring or the development of new product offerings. All of these require the reconfiguration of business operations and have real implications for local industry and the goods and services available to customers and communities. As such, the successful execution of a climate strategy will be integral to the long-term resilience and value generation potential of these businesses, as well as to the success of global climate goals. 3.1 Stakeholder impacts from corporate climate action A range of stakeholders may face socioeconomic impacts of corporate transitions. The stakeholders impacted by a business’s activities extend beyond its employees, board and shareholders. Outside the organization, there are other groups that are exposed to a business’s operations, including suppliers, customers and wider communities. Those exposed to the effects of corporate climate transitions fall into four groups, as identified in previous World Economic Forum publications, and the technical scope of the Taskforce for Inequality and Social Related Financial Disclosures (TISFD): 43,44 Workforce Individuals who are part of the internal workforce of a company, on which the company can have a direct impact, including employees, contractors or gig workers, regardless of the nature of the contractValue chain Individuals involved at any point throughout the value chain of production or provision of a good or service, including raw material, supply or logistics providers (companies may have an indirect impact on these stakeholders)Consumers Individuals who consume businesses’ products, goods and servicesCommunities Individuals and entities that provide businesses the “social license to operate”, including local communitiesStakeholders impacts of corporate climate action FIGURE 12 Making the Green Transition Work for People and the Economy 38