14-04-2025
New Survey: Sustainability Stays Central To C-Suite's Vision Amid Global Unrest, But Leaders Struggle To Prove Its ROI
Increasingly, they see sustainability as a core component of doing business: 67% of C-suite leaders recently surveyed by Forbes Research say it's a top-three priority, up from just 22% three years ago.
At the same time, geopolitical and economic uncertainty—as well as the challenge of proving sustainability's ROI—are making it difficult to translate their ambitions into action.
This was revealed in the third-annual Forbes Research State of Sustainability survey, which captured perspectives from 1,101 C-suite leaders representing companies with at least $500 million in revenue. Respondents included chief sustainability officers, chief executive officers, chief financial officers, chief human resources officers, chief operating officers and others in leadership.
Discover some of our top research findings below, and take our quiz to learn more about the C-suite's sustainability outlook.
We asked leaders where sustainability ranked on their organization's priority list three years ago, and zero respondents placed it first. Today, 28% ranked it number-one and an additional 39% considered it a top-three agenda item. Almost all leaders we surveyed (91%) identified sustainability as a top-five business priority.
This deepening commitment is reflected in dollar signs—89% plan to up their sustainability budgets this year and 0% expect a decrease. We also observe stronger engagement from top leadership, with 68% of CxOs identifying their CEO as the primary owner of sustainability strategy, up from 43% last year.
What's igniting their dedication? Surveytakers cited investor expectations (70%) and business outcomes (66%) as the top-two factors influencing their environmental efforts, highlighting a dominant belief within the C-suite: Sustainability wins revenue.
As environmental ambition accelerates in the corporate space, what specific initiatives are organizations working on? Will those priorities shuffle in the short-term?
Respondents cited water quality, plastic waste reduction and energy management as the top-three initiatives they're executing today. However, they expect a reordering of project priorities and are eager for tech-enabled efficiencies—predicting AI and analytics-based sustainability programs will rank number-one within the year.
We see AI investment trending up since 2024, when just 19% of firms relied on the tech to power their sustainability efforts. Today 58% currently use AI, and 62% plan to incorporate it into their environmental projects within the year (versus 29% in 2024).
Corporate leaders appear increasingly disoriented from massive shakeups in global markets and political power dynamics.
They cite geopolitical and economic uncertainty as their top challenges—followed by how difficult it is to translate sustainability performance into concrete financial metrics.
CxOs find demonstrating ROI increasingly unmanageable, and fewer are able to consistently measure it. While almost half (46%) say their success depends on being able to track and prove ROI, just 12% completely agree their organization regularly does so, illuminating their shared struggle to justify sustainability investments.
But even as they tackle the complex challenge of linking sustainability strategy to ROI—against the backdrop of global upheaval and the U.S.'s withdrawal from climate leadership—CxOs remain buoyed by optimism:
Tangible achievements are within reach: 72% say they're pacing to halve emissions by 2030, and 80% say they're on track to transition to net-zero by 2050.
The corporate sector contributes: As they zoom out to gauge the broader impact of their sustainability missions, at least 60% are confident their organization's efforts are positively impacting the environment, society and the economy.
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