The 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that business is now viewed as the only global institution to be both competent and ethical. Business now holds a staggering 53-point lead over government in competence and is 30 points ahead on ethics. Its treatment of workers during the pandemic and return to work, along with the swift and decisive action of over 1,000 businesses to exit Russia after its invasion of Ukraine helped fuel a 20-point jump on ethics over the past three years. Business (62 percent) remains the most and only trusted institution globally. “The increased perception of business as ethical brings with it higher than ever expectations of CEOs to be a leading voice on societal issues,” said Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman. “By a six-to-one margin, on average, respondents want more societal involvement by business on issues such as climate change, economic inequality, and workforce reskilling. But business must tread carefully, more than half (52 percent) of our respondents do not believe business can avoid being politicized when it addresses contentious societal issues.”This year’s report finds that economic optimism has collapsed globally (50 percent to 40 percent), with half of the countries surveyed showing a year-over-year double-digit decline in the belief that their families will be better off in five years’ time. Further, not one developed nation has over 36 percent of its people confident that their family will be better off in five years, and 24 of the 28 countries surveyed dropped to all-time lows in optimism including the U.S. (36 percent), the UK (23 percent), Germany (15 percent) and Japan (9 percent).On Wednesday, January 18, 2023 launched the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer Report: panelists included David Miliband, the President & CEO, International Rescue Committee; Rt. Hon. Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand & Former Administrator of UNDP; Yoshito Hori, the Founder & President, GLOBIS University; Founding Partner, GLOBIS Capital Partners; Hanneke Faber, President, Nutrition, Unilever; Jane Sun, CEO, Trip.com Group; Lorenzo Simonelli, Chairman & CEO, Baker Hughes and Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman; and moderator Thorold Barker, of The Wall Street Journal, Editor, EMEA.