The survey, which asked 500 middle-market businesses with turnovers of between £10m and £300m per year, found that almost a quarter of respondents, 24%, said that there was ‘high’ risk and 7% there was a ‘very high risk’ of losing business or losing eligibility to bid for new businesses if they failed to meet environmental, social governance standards.

The new figures released suggest that environmental, social, and governance considerations are moving up the agenda for mid-market businesses with 38% of businesses leaders stating that meeting environmental, social and governance criteria is their highest priority.