Why trust matters; helping businesses navigate a new era

Trust is a risk for businesses of all types and sizes. A drop in trust from consumers, colleagues, other stakeholders or even the wider society in which a company operates can have a direct and significant impact on the stability and performance of organisations.

Much like any other business risk, risk professionals and their advisors are keen to find ways to monitor trends, to analyse and predict threats posed by changes in trust levels and find ways to manage them.

The Edelman Trust Barometer, which has been tracking trust levels since 2001, is a valuable tool in helping risk professionals to understand current trust levels and the direction of travel. And this most recent edition throws up some interesting results that we are working with UK clients, the risk management community and our crisis management partners to understand and manage.

Rising insularity

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer 2026, there’s been a notable rise in insularity – the latest manifestation, it says, in a longer- term erosion of trust. In 2023, the world moved from fear to polarisation, in 2025 to grievance and hostile activism, and today about 70% of respondents say they are hesitant or unwilling to trust someone who differs from them in certain ways.

The barometer showed that there’s often a marked gap between trust in companies headquartered in the respondent’s domestic market and those headquartered abroad. This represents a clear risk for the performance of multinational companies, particularly those that sell goods or services in markets where these trust gaps were most pronounced – like Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom (UK).

And there are implications for workplace cohesion too. In the UK, 76% of respondents displayed insularity when asked if they were willing to trust someone who lives by core values that differ to their own, someone who trusts different sources, someone who wants to address societal problems differently to them or someone who has a different culture, background or lifestyle.

This could pose a risk to workplace culture and productivity. The Barometer showed that 35% of all UK employee respondents said they’d rather switch departments than report to a manager with different values to them, while 27% said they would put less effort into helping a project team leader succeed if they held differing political views.

And there’s a wider economic implication, with 29% of UK respondents saying they’d support a reduction in the number of foreign companies operating in the UK, even if that meant higher prices.

The Barometer shows, however, that there’s a strong sentiment that this issue needs to be addressed, with a large proportion of respondents describing insularity as a large or even crisis-level problem.

Risk leaders should promote authentic, stakeholder-informed strategies

Managing trust risk

Interestingly, the report showed that – globally as well as in the UK specifically – there’s a majority feeling that respondents trust businesses more than they do governments. This represents an opportunity for those companies that manage these risks well to drive the trust agenda.

But there are risks here as well as opportunities. As organisations increasingly become viewed as pillars of stability, any misstep – related to business ethics, social responsibility, crisis management – can rapidly escalate into reputational damage.

Workshopping various scenarios can be a valuable way for risk managers, their crisis management and insurance partners to gain insight into how rapidly and severely things can go wrong and to put in place plans to try to manage any such risks.

As well as the need to guard against events that would diminish trust – like allegations of greenwashing or contravening ESG pledges, UK companies are acutely aware that this position of trust means that there’s a focus on the duty of care that show colleagues and other stakeholders. This is an area where risk managers have expertise to share and can work across their organisations, with departments such as Human Resources, to put plans in place to safeguard this trust.

Risk leaders should promote authentic, stakeholder-informed strategies, maintain transparent communication and continually monitor social dynamics to manage the trade-offs effectively. And working collaboratively across industries on some of these areas can help to embed best practice and positive actions.

Trust Brokering

Over the past 25 years, the Edelman barometer has consistently demonstrated that trust, like reputation, is difficult to gain and easy to lose. But it has also shown over the years that businesses can lead the charge in rebuilding trust across society.

The incentive for businesses to succeed is clearly understood. And that, in itself, is trusted. It’s also clear that many people understand that most businesses are motivated to find long-term stability and to reduce risks to achieve that goal.

Businesses have an important role to play in brokering trust. Trust brokering, rather than trying to change people, focuses on surfacing the common interests of insulated parties and translates their needs, goals and realities for each other. Organisations and stakeholder groups have a clear opportunity to act as trust brokers and improve cohesion.

Eyes on the future

Looking to the future, there are several areas highlighted by the barometer that risk managers will be keen to work with other stakeholders to address. In the UK, for example, a large proportion of lower income respondents expressed concern about the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on their jobs.

Those companies that are keen to harness the benefits of AI will also have to think about the ways they can continue to have the trust of those colleagues that might feel threatened by it. Proactively managing this risk, and others like it, and acting as trust brokers will put companies on a stronger footing as they ready themselves for future challenges and opportunities.