Despite 2024 leaving a bad taste for DEI with several leading companies distancing from it, and 2025 is forecast as a gloomy year, many other adherents have not distanced themselves from their DEI commitments.
In fact, some companies appear to sustain the DEI cause with a passion, with no seeming slowdown in their commitments come 2025.
Despite visions of setbacks to DEI, Harvard found that in 2024, organizations’ “overall DEI efforts increased compared to prior years.” 60% of companies surveyed have a DEI strategy (a 9-point increase from 2023), 66% have a DEI budget (a 12-point increase from 2023) and 73% have a commitment to DEI incorporated into their company values and 63% have partnerships with organizations focused on DEI compared to 54% in 2023 (https://hbr.org/2024/12/continuing-the-work-of-dei-no-matter-what-your-company-calls-it).
The world’s fifth-largest retailer, Costco Wholesale Corporation, which employs of 310,000, has become the latest and unlikely hero in the DEI muddle, taking a strong stance to defend its DEI efforts.
When Costco shareholders urged the Board to ditch its DEI, alluding to it as an “illegal discriminatory” program, the Board rejected the request and responded:
“Our Board has considered this proposal and believes that our commitment to an enterprise rooted in respect and inclusion is appropriate and necessary. Our success at Costco Wholesale has been built on service to our critical stakeholders: employees, members and suppliers. Our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion follow our code of ethics….Our success at Costco Wholesale has been built on service to our critical stakeholders: employees, members and suppliers. Our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion follow our code of ethics…Our focus on diversity, equity and inclusion is not, however, only for the sake of improved financial performance but to enhance our culture and the well-being of people whose lives we influence…”
Costco Board’s response has now been widely quoted in the media, with the Company even earning headline space for its defiant stand.
Among the companies that are continuing to back DEI is lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret. Its rebranding along DEI did not generate increased sales as previously expected (In October 2023, it first announced “plans to withdraw its attempt at being more inclusive with its marketing, reverting to its original reputation in the wake of decreased sales”). In May 2024, Victoria’s Secret came back with its original, famous runway shows “after a 5 year absence” and “bringing back many of the elements that they have been distancing themselves from …which included canceling their iconic “Angels” supermodels and bringing on transgender and plus-sized models.”
Many other large companies have not abandoned DEI. UNLEASH, which works on employers going above and beyond on various HR topics, found that KPMG, Sky, The Body Shop, and Lloyds, having done great work in DEI. “These companies, among many others, really do create hope that not all is lost on diversity – plus the Tech Talent Charter’s research did find that huge strides have been made in certain areas, specifically neurodiversity and socio-economic diversity” says UNLEASH.
REVELIO found that J.M. Smucker, Michaels, Moderna, Prudential and ConocoPhillips were “among big corporations that expanded their DEI teams by 50% or more in 2023”.
In conclusion, we find that the headwinds against DEI that began in 2021, accelerated in 2023, and by 2024, large companies joined the ‘DEI breakaways’ movement as various socio-political developments, especially financial and legal, were taking place parallelly. Though at first glance 2025 appears to follow the same ‘gloomy’ path as 2024, a considerable number of large companies still support DEI with full ‘Board backing’ -a testimony of faith to the diversity calls that originated in the 1960s.
