How much time and money is being spent on board governance risk and compliance in 2026?
The onerous nature of compliance is becoming more costly for organisational compliance in 2026:
With the advent of climate reporting and increasing regulation, organisations are having to spend more time and money on compliance reporting and risk related issues.
The outlook for 2026+ predicts the state of the global economy is uncertain and global risks are occupying a greater proportion of board directors’ time.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Risks Report, January 2026 highlights the following:
This report marks the second half of a turbulent decade.
The report analyses global risks through three timeframes to support decision-makers in balancing current crises and longer-term priorities.
Findings of this year’s Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS), captures insights from over 1,300 experts worldwide. It explores risks in the current or immediate term (in 2026), the short-to-medium term (to 2028) and in the long term (to 2036).
Exploration of the range of implications of these risks and their interconnections, is done through six in-depth analyses of selected themes.
Uncertainty is the defining theme of the global risks outlook in 2026. GRPS respondents viewed both the short- and long-term global outlook negatively, with 50% of respondents anticipating either a turbulent or stormy outlook over the next two years, deteriorating to 57% of respondents over the next 10 years.
As global risks continue to spiral in scale, interconnectivity and velocity, 2026 marks an age of competition. As cooperative mechanisms crumble, with governments retreating from multilateral frameworks, stability is under siege. A contested multipolar landscape is emerging where confrontation is replacing collaboration, and trust – the currency of cooperation – is losing its value.
The multilateral system is under pressure. Declining trust, diminishing transparency and respect for the rule of law, along with heightened protectionism, are threatening longstanding international relations, trade and investment and increasing the propensity for conflict. Geoeconomic confrontation is top of mind for respondents and was selected as the top risk most likely to trigger a material global crisis in 2026 by 18% of respondents, increasing two positions from last year.
Technological developments and new innovations are driving opportunities, with vast potential benefits from health and education to agriculture and infrastructure, but also leading to new risks across domains, from labour markets to information integrity to autonomous weapons systems. Misinformation and disinformation and Cyber insecurity ranked #2 and #6, respectively, on the two-year outlook. Adverse outcomes of AI is the risk with the largest rise in ranking over time, moving from #30 on the two-year outlook to #5 on the 10-year outlook.
Rising societal and political polarisation is intensifying pressures on democratic systems, as extremist social, cultural and political movements challenge institutional resilience and public trust.
The GRPS findings suggest heightened prioritisation of non-environmental risks relative to environmental risks compared to previous years.
Protectionism, strategic industrial policy and active influence by governments over critical supply chains all signal a world growing more intensely competitive.
Directors need to be thinking strategically about how they are to consider the increasing risk (and opportunities) that these areas present. Much more board time will need to be spent on strategy, and generating new methods to think about how value can be created into the future for their organisations.
