Ukraine may become a major ESG moment

The Ukraine crisis is, primarily, a human tragedy - already, more than 3 million refugees are estimated to have fled the country.

Geopolitically, the situation threatens to become the worst crisis in Europe since 1945. Perhaps most alarmingly there is growing concern about the use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia which could kill millions. For corporates, the days since Russia's invasion have been a dizzying period that has seen what Yale Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld has called an unravelling of "capitalistic diplomacy" as commercial relationships have been severed on a scale thought unimaginable as recently as February. London School of Economics Professor Vladislav Zubok has also commented that the corporate retreat from Russia may be a bookend on the era whose beginnings he witnessed while passing Moscow's first McDonalds on his way to work each day soon after the collapse of the Soviet communism.

Governments around the world have taken coordinated action, using sanctions to target areas like Russia's banking system, state-controlled companies and powerful oligarchs. Beyond adhering to these government mandates, firms are guided in this fast-moving landscape by international codes of conduct, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.