Global Corporate Purpose Tracker
Consumers are demanding new and different kinds of corporate activism. In a world where trust in institutions has been on the retreat and ethical consumerism on the rise, people increasingly look to companies to take leadership on hot button issues like climate change, LGBTQ rights, abortion access, unionization, and more.
To help leaders chart a path forward, Morning Consult’s Global Corporate Purpose Tracker follows consumers’ expectations surrounding corporate activism and gauges global trust in business, while diving deeper into the expectations of global consumers around corporate action on key social issues. The tracker is updated quarterly. The latest data is from surveys conducted in March and April 2025.
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Key Takeaways
As the Trump administration gets settled in Washington, U.S. consumers are among the least enthusiastic about corporate engagement on hot-button social and environmental issues compared with their global peers, commonly ranking in the bottom third among the 18 countries where we monitor sentiment on the matter.
Consumers in major European markets — including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom — cluster near the United States when it comes to their demand for corporate action on abortion, climate change, racial equality and transgender rights, but hold more dispersed views when it comes to gay marriage and unionization. Consumers in major Anglophone markets (e.g. Canada), meanwhile, tend to exhibit more enthusiasm for engagement across most issue areas compared with their European peers.
We expect these dynamics will complicate the global corporate engagement landscape for both U.S. and global brands doing business in the world's wealthier consumer markets at a time when the average consumer in those markets is already more likely to distrust both business leader and large corporations than not. In parallel, consumers in lower- and middle-income markets continue to show higher levels of trust on both fronts and have a robust appetite for buying goods and services from companies that reflect their social values, but vary widely in the exact values they hold.
Collectively, these trends will continue to pose challenges for one-size-fits-all messaging and engagement strategies across the world's major consumer markets, and speak to the ongoing need for carefully targeted corporate engagement efforts. All the more so at a time when brands the world over risk being taken to task for any perceived messaging missteps surrounding pricing changes in response to a slate of newly imposed U.S. tariffs that may threaten the consumer spending landscape.
Data Downloads
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Global Consumer Trust in Business
Values-Based Consumerism
Source of This Data
Methodology
Sampling and data collection
This report relies on data collected through Morning Consult’s proprietary survey research capabilities. Data comes from surveys conducted in December 2024 through January 2025 among roughly 1,000 adults per country, with margins of error of +/-3 percentage points. All interviews are conducted online. Surveys field during the second half of the indicated month.
Data is weighted to approximate representative samples of adults in each country surveyed. Weighting parameters vary by country.
Consult our Global Political Intelligence Methodology Primer for additional details on sampling and data collection procedures, weighting and representativeness, margins of error, and question wording.
About Morning Consult
Morning Consult is a global decision intelligence company changing how modern leaders make smarter, faster, better decisions. The company pairs its proprietary high-frequency data with applied artificial intelligence to better inform decisions on what people think and how they will act. Learn more at morningconsult.com.
Email [email protected] to speak with a member of our team about the Global Corporate Purpose Tracker.
Sonnet Frisbie is the deputy head of political intelligence and leads Morning Consult’s geopolitical risk offering for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Prior to joining Morning Consult, Sonnet spent over a decade at the U.S. State Department specializing in issues at the intersection of economics, commerce and political risk in Iraq, Central Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. She holds an MPP from the University of Chicago.
Follow her on Twitter @sonnetfrisbie. Interested in connecting with Sonnet to discuss her analysis or for a media engagement or speaking opportunity? Email [email protected].
