According to a survey conducted in 2022, around 59 percent of the C-level executives from major companies worldwide said that their firms are incorporating the use of more sustainable materials in their sustainability efforts against climate change. Another 59 percent of the executives pointed out that their companies are increasing the efficiency of energy use.

According to a survey conducted in 2024, around 39 percent of C-level executives pointed out that addressing climate change was the main benefit from their company's sustainability efforts. Meanwhile, around 38 percent of the executives believed that customer satisfaction was another benefit from such sustainability efforts.

This statistic depicts the leading companies integrating sustainability into their business strategy according to sustainability experts, as of 2018. Unilever stood as the leading company integrating sustainability into their business strategy, according to 47 percent of the surveyed experts.

As of May 2024, survey respondents ranked companies headquartered in their regions that are leaders in integrating sustainability into their business strategy. In Latin America, 63 percent of respondents agreed that Natura & Co was a sustainability leader. Unilever and Patagonia held the top spots among European and North American experts, being named by 30 and 33 percent of respondents. Tata Group was named by 12 percent of experts in the Asia-Pacific as a leader in integrating sustainability into their business strategy.

As of 2023, over half the surveyed companies expect emerging technologies to play a vital role in accelerating sustainability. In 2024, this figure has continued to increase, closer to 60 percent of the organizations worldwide. The only perspective that had been shrinking was the expectation that the technologies could play a largely positive role in enabling sustainability, but also present some risks. The last has decreased at the same rate as the first expectation from the previous year.

As many consumers have become determined about their beliefs surrounding sustainability, putting their money where their mouth is, many enterprises and brands around the world have reacted accordingly. When asked about any sustainable initiatives in 2021, nearly half of businesses stated they are investing in easy solutions for recycling their products over the next year. Over a third of surveyed companies also planned to distance themselves from partners that were not likely to meet shared sustainability targets.

According to a survey conducted in February 2021 on attitude to company and brand sustainability behavior, nearly 89 percent of respondents expected companies and brands to do a lot more to reduce their carbon impact. About 82 percent of the respondents wanted companies to put people and planet before profit.

According to a survey conducted in 2022, around 29 percent of C-level executives mentioned that the difficulty in measuring environmental impact was the leading obstacle faced when implementing sustainability efforts in their companies. Meanwhile, another 19 percent of the executives pointed out that the sustainability efforts were too costly.

Headquartered in Australia, Sims Limited leads the ranking of the most sustainable corporations as of 2024, having earned an overall A+ score. The company operates in the metal and electronics recycling, municipal recycling, and renewable energy sectors. Also based in Australia, the second-leading company in terms of sustainability that year was Brambles Limited.

In 2022, the vast majority of consumers across the globe saw their purchasing behavior become at least a little more environmentally friendly compared to five years earlier. Specifically, over a third of surveyed shoppers noticed a modest change, while nearly 30 percent said they bought sustainable products significantly more often. Nearly one in 10 respondents even claimed they had turned around their way of life in order to be environmentally sustainable.

Sustainability premiums

As the fight against climate change becomes increasingly important, people around the world have become more willing to pay more for sustainability: in 2022, the average sustainability premium consumers around the world considered acceptable for consumer goods came to roughly 24 percent. In other words, shoppers worldwide were willing to pay up to an average of 24 percent more for sustainably produced consumer goods. Unsurprisingly, those with a higher income were willing to spend more than those with average or lower incomes.

Sustainability initiatives of brands

Many companies and brands are aware of the ongoing trend towards protecting the environment and are taking steps to promote sustainability. Allowing shoppers to easily recycle their products, as well as measuring and tracking their own emissions, are just some examples of initiatives a considerable share of brands had taken in the past couple of years.

Larger firms are more likely to attain certification to an environmental sustainability standard - 37 percent of companies with over 100 workers had such a certificate, while only 5 percent of firms with fewer than 5 workers had attained such a status.

During an August 2023 survey among chief marketing officers (CMOs) in Canada and the United States, 56 percent of respondents said they were allocating between 11 and 40 percent of their marketing budget to the promotion of business sustainability efforts. Around four percent said they were allocating more than 60 percent of their budget to said efforts.

During a 2023 survey, 11 percent of respondents among Western physical security professionals and ten percent among Asian ones reported that their clients always asked for green products and solutions in their projects. In addition, one-third of Western respondents and 12 percent of Asian respondents claimed that their clients often asked for sustainable products and solutions. On the other hand, 12 percent of Asian and nine percent of Western respondents mentioned that their clients never asks for such products and solutions.

This statistic presents the share of global companies that have energy or environmental strategies in progress or planned within the next two years. As of 2018, more than 80 percent of respondents stated they had considered or implemented energy efficiency upgrades.

The region where the highest number of companies reported environmental risks was North America, followed by the Asia-Pacific region, with way more than half of companies in both regions identifying these risks. In Europe, approximately half of the companies reported on environmental risks. In contrast, in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, fewer than half of the companies reported such risks.

As of 2021, sustainability played a considerably more important role in the business plan of banks in the Netherlands and in the United Kingdom compared to banks in Germany. That year, 91 percent of Dutch banks attributed an important role to sustainability in their business plan.

The statistic displays the results of a survey regarding motivations of companies for paying attention to sustainability in Belgium in 2018. The survey results show that as of 2018, a significant share of companies were motivated to pay attention to sustainability by business activity and advantages to stakeholders. Close to 70 percent of organizations surveyed indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed that they were motivated to pay attention to sustainability by business activity, while 58 percent of respondents indicated that ecological and social standards did not motivate their company to pay attention to sustainability.

According to a survey conducted in late 2023, approximately four in five consumers in the United States agreed that companies need to be more specific when labeling their sustainability initiatives and that the typically used umbrella term "sustainability" is insufficient. This was by far the leading issue U.S. consumers had regarding corporate sustainability communications.

Consumers and sustainability premiums

How much money consumers around the world are willing to dish out for sustainable goods has evolved somewhat over the last few years. The number of people who had paid a premium of one to five percent for a more sustainable product was about 10 percent higher in late 2023 than it was back in 2020. However, the number of people who spent an additional five percent or more for goods that were manufactured sustainably dropped slightly within that timeframe. Price has always been an important factor among shoppers, and they may not always be willing or able to meet these higher price points.

What motivates consumers to shop more sustainably?

Unsurprisingly, price is a big reason why it can be difficult to shop more sustainably. That said, it is not the only issue. As mentioned by surveyed apparel shoppers in Europe, sustainable goods can also be challenging to find, or it can even be unclear what eco-friendly aspects are fulfilled by brands. In the United Kingdom, individuals were asked what would help them adopt more sustainable habits, and the two leading answers included making the ethical option the more affordable option, and the implementation of better plastics and packaging removal schemes.

Organizations in 2022 are mostly focused on improving the organizations physical impact on environment when using artificial intelligence (AI). It is highly likely that this is due to such improved efficiency translating most easily to improved company numbers of growth and expenditure. Sourcing ethical products takes the least back seat among organizations as it can often have direct cost increases to the production and supply lines.

The Asia-Pacific region has had the largest growth rate in sustainability reporting, moving from roughly 50 percent of firms to 92 percent of companies engaging in sustainability reporting. The Europe and Africa were the only regions to recently experience a regression, as the number of firms participating in sustainability reporting dropped by one and five percent respectively since 2022.