Apparently, Apple removed an ‘ESG modifier’ from its top executives’ pay packages last year – joining other big brands like Procter & Gamble and Starbucks in a trend thought to reflect a decreasing interest in corporate environmental performance across the United States.
As reported by Bloomberg, the provision was introduced in 2021 and allowed Apple to increase or decrease annual bonuses by up to 10% depending on the company’s annual sustainability metrics, including greenhouse gas reductions and its suppliers’ use of renewable energy.
Yale School of Management lecturer Namrita Kapur told the publication that linking executive pay to sustainability performance “signals that these outcomes are core to performance, not side projects” – and ensures that environmental considerations will be discussed in operating reviews and capital allocating decisions.
However, the impact of the ESG modifier has come into question. It only represented 1.2% of CEO Tim Cook’s total compensation in 2023, according to Bloomberg, and totalled $747,450.
The share of companies on the S&P 500 index that linked executive compensation to environmental metrics was reported to peak at 52.6% in the same year, but to decrease to 46.7% in 2025.
Additionally, companies operating in the United States are contending with President Donald Trump’s hostility towards environmental measures. Having described climate impacts as a “hoax” and efforts to combat them as a “scam”, the president has rescinded plans to phase out single-use plastics on federal lands, withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement, and pulled the US from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
This has caused some companies to scale back their public stances on sustainability. The Financial Times recently claimed to have watched video footage of Nestlé chief executive Philipp Navratil speaking at an event for staff members, in which he allegedly described the brand’s silence on environmental matters as “President Trump’s fault” – adding that sustainability “has totally gone off the agenda” in American boardrooms.
“If you think about it in hindsight, five years ago or three years ago, if you go and meet investors, you would get plenty of questions about sustainability,” he is quoted as saying. “In all of the [recent] investor meetings I have done, nobody asks, not one has asked — I think one maybe — about sustainability.”
Brian Bueno, sustainability practice leader at Farient Advisors, also told Bloomberg that shareholders now apply less pressure regarding environmental concerns: “That makes it so these issues are a little less top of mind for the company and for the board. If there’s just not that much focus on it, then that’s just what drops off.”
As discussed in a previous edition of the Brief, shareholders have shown a recent interest in ESG reporting, but they have been accused of prioritizing financial and reputational gain over environmental performance. Equally, taking radical action against company boards with little interest in sustainability can be a time-consuming and expensive process that may damage the company’s reputation and cause longer-lasting tensions.
Jannice Koors, senior managing director at Pearl Meyer, added that the rollback of ESG modifiers could suggest that some companies were never fully committed to environmental goals as a business strategy.
“We saw a lot of bandwagon effects,” she said. “So, when the winds blew back in the other direction, they’re like, ‘Okay, I guess we’ll take it out now.’”
Multiple big brands missed and revised their packaging sustainability deadlines for 2025, but rather than signalling disinterest, some blamed the outcome on setting too ambitious targets. Others cited external factors such as underdeveloped infrastructure and regulation, access to recyclate, and consumer behaviour.
Neil Osment, managing director of packaging market research company NOA, also told Packaging Europe that the process of developing new packaging materials, from the design to production stages, can take between two and five years, if not longer; this is thought to have slowed some companies down, with Osment recommending collaborative efforts as a solution.
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