Company: ASB
Filing Date: 2025-02-12
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000007789-25-000013
Chunk: 183

Company: ASSOCIATED BANC-CORP
Filing Date: 2025-02-12
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 183
---
/or cause us to incur additional expenses. Climate change and other environmental and social pressures are expected to increase the intensity and frequency of certain events, as well as contribute to chronic changes (such as changes to meteorological or hydrological patterns) that may also adversely impact our operations. Although management has established disaster recovery policies and procedures, there is no guarantee these will be successful, and the occurrence of any such event could have a material adverse effect on our business, which, in turn, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Increasing, complex, evolving and conflicting regulatory, stakeholder, and other third-party expectations on ESG and DEI matters could adversely affect our reputation, our access to capital and the market price of our securities.

The Corporation is subject to a variety of risks arising from ESG/DEI matters, which include, among other things, climate change, human capital, and human rights. Risks arising from such matters may adversely affect, among other things, our reputation and the market price of our securities.

While we engage in various initiatives to help manage our ESG profile and respond to stakeholder expectations, which continue to evolve, such initiatives can be costly and may not have the desired effect. For example, many of these initiatives leverage methodologies, standards, and data that continue to evolve. As with other companies, our approach to such matters also evolves, and we cannot guarantee that our approach will align with the expectations or preferences of any particular stakeholder. Moreover, stakeholder expectations are not uniform, and both opponents and proponents of various ESG-related matters have increasingly resulted in a range of activism to advocate for their positions. For example, in the last several years, certain state attorneys general, treasurers, and legislators have taken various actions to impact the extent to which ESG principles are considered by financial institutions, including to require or prohibit the consideration of various ESG matters in certain contexts. 

In addition to the potential for broader "anti-ESG/DEI" policies and laws, on January 21, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order requiring all federal agencies to terminate any policies, programs, mandates, guidance, regulations, and other actions and orders establishing DEI-based preferences, and to enforce federal civil rights laws to combat such preferences, mandates, policies, programs and activities of entities operating in the private sector. Further, the Executive Order directs federal agencies to take appropriate action to discourage private sector DEI-based initiatives. To this end, federal agencies are required to