This article is part of a seven-piece series on the Global ESGT Megatrends 2025-2026. You can find the previous piece here.
We first summarize the Megatrends and trends. Then, we conclude with the Megatrends Leadership Blueprint of actionable “to dos” for this coming year. The bottom line message: there is a lot going on, we need to adopt situational awareness to the best of our abilities to understand our key issues, risks and opportunities and build long term, sustainable resilience.
The big picture
Leaders – from whatever sector, geography or purpose – must exercise situational awareness on behalf of their organization – whether public, private, civic or otherwise – to achieve and fulfil responsibilities to key stakeholders. The primary purpose of The Global ESGT Megatrends for 2025-2026 is to help these decision-makers to identify some of the critical, big picture, multi-year developments in the context of what is going on right now and with a view to the coming 1-2 years.
Establishing a situational awareness baseline is only the beginning as by definition such awareness is and should be constantly adapting, requiring the continuous considered attention of leaders. And situational awareness helps leaders to develop a Foresight Strategy. As I describe in my forthcoming book on future governance, Governing Pandora, a future-forward strategy begins with “situational awareness” and continues with four additional elements - “systems thinking”, “tech-risk intelligence”, “tech-opportunity readiness”, and “interdisciplinary scenario planning”. See Figure below.
Source: A. Bonime-Blanc. Governing Pandora: Leading in the Age of Generative AI and Exponential Technology. Georgetown University Press 2026.
Background: A summary of megatrends and key trends
Before we unfurl the Global ESGT Actionable Leadership Blueprint, below are summaries of each of the Megatrends and trends relating to each of the five Megatrends for 2025-2026.
In Megatrend #1 – Geopolitical tectonic shifts rupturing considers the extreme change that is taking place geopolitically and politically affecting international, national and organizational planning, strategy and governance. In doing so, we examine four trends listed in the Table below that are influencing change in this space.
The key take-away? We are at a material inflection point in how international relations (diplomacy and conflict) and internal politics (especially within democracies) are being carried out and business, government and civil society – regardless of role and responsibility - must be prepared for reverberations we cannot fully predict or understand.
In Megatrend #2 – Leadership trust recession we focus on a critically important piece of the global puzzle – the decline in leadership trust worldwide which obviates the need for good to great leaders to exist in all sectors. Without such leaders to represent, protect and further the interests of their key stakeholders, trust will continue to decline with negative consequences for all. Four trends are examined as listed in the Table below.
The key take-away? Stakeholders and especially those with agency and power need to ensure that a better class of leader – emotionally intelligent, humble, curious, inclusive and forward looking – is increasingly sought and secured in all contexts – government, business, and society.
In Megatrend #3 – Exponential technology unfettered we consider the vortex of technological change taking place all around us and some of the key trends that are supporting this unprecedented change. We haven’t seen anything yet. See Table below summarizing these trends.
The key take-away? All companies and organizations are now tech organizations - whether they want to be or not. All types of leaders and decision-makers must gain proper situational awareness of how technology – including exponential technologies like GenAI, advanced materials, biotech and automation (to name just a few) – affect and will affect their value proposition and key stakeholders.
Megatrend #4 – Socioecological polyrisk and tipping points rising the gist of this megatrend is that the socioecological triangle – climate + biodiversity + humanity – i.e., life on earth, is quickly moving into a permanent state of polycrisis, polyrisk and imminent planetary tipping points from which we may be unable to recover. See the trends listed in the Table below.
The key take-away? All of us have a stake and a responsibility in understanding, interpreting and preventing further socioecological polyrisks and polycrises as these are rising and multiplying and serious tipping points may become unpreventable. This includes deploying advanced climate tech asap.
In Megatrend #5 – Stakeholder capitalism metamorphosing we consider the challenges to and path that stakeholder capitalism – and other potential variants like regenerative capitalism and tech associated oligarchical/plutocratic capitalism – may be taking and try to understand how some of the trends – listed in the Table below – are affecting this trajectory.
The key take-away? Stakeholder capitalism and its associated ESG and DEI components are under attack in the largest world economy for now. Despite these headwinds, smart businesses and others continue to embed sustainability into strategy and resilience building mainly because there is no rational alternative given the larger ESGT megatrends and trends taking place.
Moving forward - An actionable leadership blueprint
Below are the suggested leadership and decision-makers actions we suggested at the end of each Megatrend article, gathered in one continuous Table to facilitate a birds-eye view of what I call the Global ESGT Megatrends Actionable Leadership Blueprint to consider for the next 1-2 years.
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THE GLOBAL ESGT MEGATRENDS 2025-2026: ACTIONABLE LEADERSHIP BLUEPRINT
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MEGATREND #1
GEOPOLITICAL TECTONIC SHIFTS RUPTURING
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Adopt geopolitical situational awareness to your executive briefings and board meetings – the times of dismissing geopolitical risk analysis from your business strategy are long gone whether you knew it or not
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Focus like a laser beam on the intersection of your supply chain and the geoeconomic geostrategic footprint of your organization – both upstream to your clients and downstream to your supplier and their supplier –
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Upgrade your supply chain tech to include whatever level of GenAI sophistication may be needed or warranted to protect the business, its stakeholders and offer a competitive advantage
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Name someone on your executive team to be the geopolitical, political and policy guru to coordinate all necessary information from your various departments – risk, operations, at the country and local levels – an ensure the proper reliable resources, subscriptions external experts are available to help in general and in a crisis
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Integrate Geopolitical & Political Analysis with Enterprise Risk Management & Risk Governance – better yet ensure ERM has a robust bucket for geopolitics, politics and public policy and make sure both management and the board get periodic reports and updates
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MEGATREND #2
LEADERSHIP TRUST RECESSION
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Prioritize Integrity and Emotional Intelligence for Leadership Selection. Boards, management and other responsible oversight bodies should do proper in-depth due diligence and prioritize (1) competence/expertise, (2) finances, tax returns, (3) reputation, (4) psychological profile. The latter is critical because sociopaths and similar non-emotionally intelligent people should not be put in positions of power.
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Understand your Critical Stakeholders and Cater to Them and Their Needs. Study, engage and solicit key stakeholder views on critical issues, understand their pain points and their desires whether they are employees, customers, partners, the regulators, or the media.
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Create Trustworthy Information Ecosystems, Cultures and Roadmaps. Leaders are in a unique position to foster the use and deployment of quality data and it’s their responsibility to do so. This includes building a culture of trust on how tech - AI, GenAI, other relevant technologies - may affect, replace or augment existing jobs, and change the skills and jobs mix forever. Trust begins with transparency about the impact of tech on jobs. Share your well-considered thoughts.
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Understand and Provide Safety and Security. Leaders must understand the threat surface for virtual and physical dangers to their stakeholders (and their convergence) and must devote the proper time and resources for budget and strategy to deal with these constantly morphing and potentially existential threats. Those who do will have a much better chance at longterm resilience, sustainability, survival and success.
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MEGATREND #3
EXPONENTIAL TECHNOLOGY UNFETTERED
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Learn About the Tech that Permeates Your World and Treat Your Organization as if it were a Tech Company. Every organization – every company, every agency, every university, is a tech entity or person. There is no such thing as a company or other entity that is not a tech entity. Leadership must rapidly achieve future tech literacy. It is a survive or die time. Boards and management do not have the option of ignoring tech disruption—hire management and recruit board members with tech governance, ethics, or risk expertise and even more with a continuous education mindset, humility and curiosity.
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Focus on your Talent Mix Making Adjustments from Top to Bottom. Everyone will be affected by the technology changes underway – which have not yet accelerated but will. As individuals, decision-makers and global citizens, it is incumbent on us to learn everything necessary about how exponential tech affects us, our people, our organization and our community. You must begin to make necessary – and humane – plans and adjustments.
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Prepare for the Borderless Tech Surveillance Enhanced World. The borderless tech world is here – for everyone – for better and for worse. We all need to be informed and prepared to deal with adverse outcomes from some of these exponential technologies. Understand what’s on your smartphone, your computer, your IoT devices, on the street and in pou8blic venues and make the right choices to protect privacy and data.
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Adopt a Voluntary Exponential Governance Mindset. Don’t wait for regulators to catch up - it is incumbent on responsible entities in all sectors to develop suitable voluntary tech governance frameworks to retain their social tech license to operate
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MEGATREND #4
SOCIOECOLOGICAL POLYRISKS & TIPPING POINTS RISING
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Identify and Integrate Your Key Socioecological Issues into Enterprise Risk Management and Risk Governance. Ensure that all relevant social, biodiversity and environmental risks and opportunities are integrated into organizational risk management and risk governance and that your board is fully informed and continually educated on changing conditions.
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Deploy Polyrisk and Polycrisis Preparedness into Strategy. Understand that tipping points may happen in the next 1-2 decades – what does that mean for your business strategy? Conduct appropriate scenario planning. Integrate key societal, environmental and biodiversity risks and opportunities into your business plan and strategy.
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Evaluate How Tipping Points May Impact Your Supply Chain. Undertake a serious supply chain analysis including an understanding of how certain tipping points might affect your upstream and downstream supply chains and make sure that alternative, diversified arrangements and back up plans are made.
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Understand Socioecological Impacts on Your Key Stakeholders. Conduct an analysis of who your most affected stakeholders are – employees, contractors, subcontractors, communities, others. Understand the key socioecological issues of your key stakeholders—especially employees, but also customers, and communities—and develop programs and plans to address such key issues including health (mental and physical), safety, and crisis management.
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MEGATREND #5
STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM METAMORPHOSING
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ESG Polemics are Noise—Sustainability is Signal – Focus on the Latter. Consider the ESG polemics as the noise, and sustainability as the signal—arm yourself accordingly with the talent, tools, and culture your organization needs to survive and thrive through the next few years. This means having the right CEO and management team as well as a board that understands sustainability governance intimately. Don’t let temporary political policies distract you from the long term resilient sustainability that can power your business.
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Put Stakeholders and their Key Issues at the Core. This should include critical environmental and social risks and opportunities such as mental and physical health and safety, human rights, mass involuntary immigration and privacy—add them to your risk register and strategy. In other words, care about your stakeholders.
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Acknowledge the Central Role of Tech in ESG/Sustainability. Technology has a central and crucial role to play in advancing sustainability and resilience—make sure you know what you need to do technologically.
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Despite the ESG Headwinds, Stick to Values and Resilience Building. Because for every force there is a counterforce – for every pendulum swing there is a counter swing. Change will happen faster than we expect. Staying true to values, practices and long-term resilience will be the winners. Speak up consistently with your organizational values even when it jeopardizes actual or potential business. Successful stakeholder capitalism is a long-term play not a day-trader’s game.
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A final note: On preparedness in unpredictable and uncertain times
To conclude then, I will repeat here what I stated in the second article of this series (Megatrend #1) published in May 2025: There is only one thing that is certain today – uncertainty. There is only one thing that is predictable today – unpredictability. But it isn’t all about gloom and doom. Indeed, the beauty of uncertainty and unpredictability is that it can also harbor opportunity for unpredictable good-to-great things to happen as well.
And preparedness is the key to success in these uncertain and unpredictable times. With preparation comes resilience and with resilience the ability to survive and even thrive through the darkness and back into the light.
I hope this series has helped you develop a certain degree of situational awareness to translate what these megatrends and trends might mean to you and your organization and encourages you to dig deeper into their implications and impacts on your most important stakeholders and long-term resilience.
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