Sustainability FAQs

As AI adoption accelerates, companies face growing expectations to ensure its responsible development and use. While AI can advance sustainability efforts, it also introduces significant environmental, social, and governance risks. BSR outlines why Responsible AI is a critical sustainability issue and how CSOs and sustainability teams can influence AI governance. 

Across industries, companies are navigating a shared set of supply chain challenges driven by evolving regulations, data scarcity, and diverging stakeholder expectations. BSR unpacks five of the most pressing supply chain sustainability questions we’ve received from members in 2026.

BSR discusses the revocation of the U.S. EPA Endangerment Finding and what it means for companies operating in or connected to the U.S. market.

This FAQ sets out BSR’s perspective on generative AI and its implications for ethics and human rights.

This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on new laws and regulations relevant for our work. The field of just and sustainable business is entering a new era where actions that have previously been voluntary are becoming mandatory. We believe it is essential that the spirit of the law is achieved as well as its letter, that compliance supports ambitious human rights policies and sustainability goals, and that regulatory requirements are used to help create a world in which all people can thrive on a healthy planet. 

This FAQ sets out BSR’s perspective on the governance and oversight of just and sustainable business at companies. We believe that engaged boards, empowered executive leadership, and clear roles and responsibilities throughout companies are essential for the creation of long-term value for investors and society.

This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on stakeholder engagement. We believe that meaningful stakeholder engagement is an essential foundation for just and sustainable business and a core element of processes such as decision making, strategy development, materiality assessment, human rights due diligence, and reporting. Without meaningful stakeholder engagement, any approach to just and sustainable business would be constrained by a company’s self-interest and inward focus.

This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on net zero targets. We believe that setting science-based net-zero targets—and more importantly, taking ambitious action to achieve these targets—is core to the role that companies should play in helping achieve the Paris Agreement’s stretch target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on the related concepts of materiality and salience. We believe that implementation of the key concepts described in this FAQ—such as double materiality, impact materiality, and salience—provide the foundation for more resilient business strategies, informed decision making by all stakeholders, and the realization of human rights in practice.

This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on the relationship between climate change and people. 

This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on human rights assessments. We believe that identifying and prioritizing the actual and potential human rights impacts with which a company may be involved is a first critical step in avoiding, preventing, and mitigating harm to people associated with business activity.