🔥 When the “S” in ESG Fails: How Ignoring People Brings Down Even the Mightiest Companies

Swati Balani

2 months ago

The Warning All Companies Hear — But Not All Survive

There comes a moment in every company’s life when everything looks perfect from the outside.

The stock price is rising.
The brand is admired.
The CEO is celebrated.
The world believes the company is a success story written in stone.

But inside the engine room — where the real work happens — something fragile has already started to break.

It whispers first.

A pilot whispers:
“I cannot fly another night. I’m exhausted.”

A warehouse worker whispers:
“My back hurts. I don’t think I can lift another box. But I need this job.”

A software engineer whispers:
“This culture feels toxic. I’m losing myself.”

A factory worker whispers:
“There are cracks in the wall. We shouldn’t go in today.”

A customer whispers:
“Something feels off. They just don’t care like before.”

And somewhere in a glass boardroom — surrounded by dashboards, charts, and KPIs — those whispers get drowned by ambition.

“Later.”
“We can push harder.”
“We need to hit the quarter.”
“It’s manageable.”

But then, one day, the whispers become a scream.

Flights are cancelled by the thousands.
Planes crash.
Workers strike.
Customers revolt.
Scandals explode.
Entire factories collapse.
Brands burn down overnight.

Not because markets collapsed.
Not because technology failed.
Not because competitors won.

But because the company forgot its people.

This is the story of those collapses — IndiGo, Boeing, Uber, Amazon, Foxconn, Wells Fargo, Rana Plaza, OYO — not as accusations, but as lessons.
Not to shame, but to warn.
Not to judge, but to prevent future tragedies.

Because every corporate disaster is a human disaster first.

When the “S” in ESG fails, everything else follows.

1. IndiGo Crisis (2025): A People Problem That Became a National Breakdown

India witnessed scenes normally reserved for Hollywood disaster films — airport floors filled with stranded passengers, crying children, people sleeping on luggage, and thousands scrambling to reach weddings, interviews, exams, and funerals.

Why?

Not due to a natural disaster.
Not due to a terror threat.
Not due to a global emergency.

But because of crew fatigue, overloaded rosters, and lack of preparedness for updated rest and safety norms — all linked directly to the “S” pillar of ESG.

The Hidden Problem: People Were Exhausted

Reports highlighted:

Pilots operating on stretched rosters
Airline maintaining fewer pilots per aircraft than needed
Months of warnings about fatigue
Poor contingency planning for regulatory changes
Internal allegations of unrealistic workloads

When new safety norms kicked in, IndiGo didn’t have enough rested crew to fly.

The result?

A national aviation crisis.

The Human Cost

Families missed life events.
Students missed exams.
Elderly passengers slept on the floor.
Airport staff took the anger.
Pilots battled burnout.

Efficiency alone cannot keep a system running when its people are on the edge.

IndiGo’s crisis is a case study in how ignoring the Social pillar can cripple operations overnight.

Two crashes.
Two aircraft full of families who never reached home.
346 lives lost.
One of the greatest reputational and financial hits in aviation history.

The cause?

Internal warnings ignored.
Safety concerns overshadowed by pressure to compete with Airbus.
Pilots not adequately trained on new software.
A culture that prioritised speed and market dominance over human safety.

This is the darkest example of what happens when profit outvotes people.

The human cost was irreversible.
The corporate cost was billions.

3. Amazon Warehouses: When Human Bodies Meet Brutal Efficiency

Amazon is one of the most admired companies on earth.
Yet its warehouses have faced global scrutiny:

Injury rates reportedly higher than industry averages
Workers rushing to meet algorithm-driven targets
Bathroom breaks timed
High turnover
Allegations of dehumanising conditions

Amazon has since invested heavily in safety improvements — but the early years showed what happens when hyper-efficiency forgets human capacity.

You can build the world’s fastest logistics machine.
But not on exhausted backs forever.

4. Uber: A Culture That Grew Too Fast, Until It Collapsed Inward

Uber wasn’t destroyed by competitors.
It was wounded by its own culture.

Reports described:

Widespread harassment
Managerial bullying
Retaliation fears
Grey-area ethics
A “bro culture” celebrated internally but condemned globally

The result?

CEO resignation
Massive valuation hit
Investor revolt
Global investigations
Reputation rebuild costing years

Uber’s story teaches one painful truth:
No innovation survives a broken culture.

5. Foxconn & Apple: Workers Under Pressure in the World’s Most Efficient Factories

Foxconn, a key Apple supplier, faced global outrage after:

Long work hours
Dormitory-style living
Labour pressure
Multiple suicides at facilities

Apple intervened, audits were conducted, and conditions improved — but the episode revealed a global blind spot:

Efficiency is not sustainability.
Human dignity is not optional.

6. Wells Fargo: When Internal Pressure Destroys Integrity

Wells Fargo employees were pushed to meet aggressive sales targets.

So aggressive that thousands resorted to creating millions of fake customer accounts without consent.

Why?

Because the internal pressure was crushing.
And when people break, ethics break.

The consequences:

CEO resignation
Billions in fines
Regulatory restrictions
Severe reputational damage

This wasn’t a finance scandal.
It was a social systems failure.

7. Rana Plaza: The Corporate Negligence That Took 1,100 Lives

Nothing reveals the true meaning of “Social” in ESG more painfully than Rana Plaza — a garment factory building in Bangladesh.

Workers saw cracks in the walls.
They begged not to enter.

Managers forced them.

The building collapsed.
1,134 workers died.
Thousands were injured.
Families shattered forever.

This tragedy changed global supply chain standards — but at a cost too high to forgive.

It became the world’s loudest warning that ignoring workers is fatal.

8. OYO Rooms: Blitzscaling Beyond People Limits

As OYO scaled globally:

Small hotel partners complained about contract terms
Employees described burnout
Quality scores dropped
Lawsuits piled up
Global partners withdrew

The company stabilised later, but the lesson was clear:

Growth without people foundations collapses under its own speed.

THE PATTERN IS ALWAYS THE SAME

Across industries, countries, and decades, the same formula repeats:

When pressure grows
and people weaken
and leadership ignores
and early warnings are silenced
and culture turns fragile—
the collapse begins.

Companies don’t fall because the market turns.
They fall because their people do.

Why This Matters to Every Leader Today

Whether you run:

A conglomerate
A fintech
A renewable energy firm
A hospital chain
A logistics empire
An airline
A manufacturing unit
A consulting firm

… your survival depends on ONE thing:

How well you protect your people.

Not your revenue, not your brand, not your technology.

Because when fatigue meets silence,
when ethics meet pressure,
when customers feel invisible,
when workers feel replaceable,
and when safety becomes negotiable—

the countdown to collapse begins.

ESG Isn’t About Compliance. It’s About Humanity.

The Environmental pillar can be measured.
The Governance pillar can be documented.

But the Social pillar must be lived:

Safety
Workload
Fairness
Dignity
Customers
Labour practices
Culture
Well-being
Transparency
Respect

Companies fail here because S is the hardest —
and the most important.

The future will belong to companies that lead with empathy, not ego.
Responsibility, not just revenue.
Humanity, not just efficiency.

Because machines may run your operations,
but people run your company.

FINAL MESSAGE: When People Rise, Companies Rise. When People Fall, Companies Fall.

IndiGo’s cancellations, Boeing’s crashes, Amazon’s fatigue complaints, Uber’s culture crisis, Foxconn’s suicides, Wells Fargo’s ethics collapse, Rana Plaza’s tragedy, OYO’s burnout — every story says the same thing:

Ignoring the “S” in ESG is not an oversight.
It is a disaster waiting to happen.

And companies that listen to early whispers
avoid the screams.