Business owners in the UAE are investing in environmental, social and corporate governance ahead of developing new products and services, according to a recent report.

New research by Cloudera, a data platform for IT and business, showed that 26 percent of businesses are now increasingly investing in environmental, social and corporate governance, compared to 24 percent that prioritised new products and services.

Businesses are prioritising investing in new products or services and 15 percent, who said they were prioritising growing shareholder value.

The enterprise data cloud company said 66 percent of those surveyed believe as much as 49 percent of the data their business uses on a day-to-day basis should be focused on doing good for the communities they serve.

One third of businesses, said their companies should publicly support sustainable business practices, and 56 percent said data analytics should be used to deliver more sustainable business practices.

(Writing by Imogen Lillywhite; editing by Seban Scaria)

Imogen.lillywhite@lseg.com