The 2026 Business Sustainability Report: 60+ Stats Every Leader Needs to Know

An ITILITE report compiling 60+ business sustainability statistics from authoritative sources, including the UN, WMO, WEF, IEA, IRENA, CDP, the Science Based Targets initiative, Deloitte, McKinsey, PwC, and others. Each figure carries its source. Last updated September 2026.

Business sustainability in 2026 is a paradox. Corporate net-zero commitments are at record highs, yet the US and EU have both rolled back their flagship climate-disclosure rules. Clean-energy investment has never been larger, and neither has the planet's temperature. For a leader trying to set strategy, the noise is loud and the numbers are contradictory.

This report cuts through it with 60+ sourced statistics, grouped by theme, on where business sustainability actually stands. These are compiled from published research by climate, ESG, and industry authorities, not ITILITE's own data, and every stat links to its source so you can check it.

Ten numbers capture the year before the detail:

The business case: sustainability still pays

The clearest signal in the data is that sustainability remains a growth driver, not just a cost, even amid the political backlash.

• Consumers say they will pay a 9.7% premium for sustainably produced or sourced goods, per PwC's 2024 Voice of the Consumer survey.
• Products making sustainability claims grew about 28% cumulatively over five years, versus about 20% for those without, across 600,000 SKUs analyzed by McKinsey and NielsenIQ .
• "Triple outperformers" on growth, profit, and ESG grew revenue at a roughly 11% median annual rate, about 1.4 points above peers that lagged on ESG, per McKinsey.
• 90% of growth leaders expect sustainability to have a positive business impact over three years, versus 60% of laggards, per Bain.
• 85% of executives increased sustainability investment in the past year, up from 75% in 2023, per Deloitte's 2024 CxO Sustainability Report of 2,100 executives .
• Executives now name operating margins (37%) and supply-chain resilience (37%) among the top benefits of climate action, per the same Deloitte report.
• 69% of employees worldwide believe their employer should be reducing its environmental impact, up 11 points year over year, per PwC's 2024 workforce survey of 56,600 workers.
• More than 40% of Gen Z and millennials have changed or plan to change job or industry over climate concerns, per Deloitte's 2024 Gen Z and Millennial Survey.

Corporate climate commitments and net zero

Commitments have scaled fast, even as scrutiny of their quality has grown.

• 63% of the Forbes Global 2000, some 1,245 companies covering $36.6 trillion in revenue, now have a net-zero target, per the Net Zero Tracker's 2025 Stocktake.
• Companies with SBTi-validated targets now cover about 41% of global market capitalization, up from 39% a year earlier, per the Science Based Targets initiative.
• Companies holding both near-term and net-zero validated targets grew 227% between end-2023 and mid-2025, per SBTi.
• Roughly 10,000 companies held SBTi-validated targets by early 2026, per the SBTi Trend Tracker 2025.
• About 35 to 37% of the world's 2,000 largest companies have pledged net zero by 2050, per Accenture's Destination Net Zero 2024.
• Nearly one in three of those Global 2000 net-zero setters, 385 companies, have no clear delivery plan, per the Net Zero Tracker.

The stakes: emissions and climate reality

The physical and financial backdrop is why the commitments exist.

• 2024 was the first calendar year more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, at about 1.55°C, and the warmest in the 175-year record, per the WMO.
• Global greenhouse-gas emissions hit a record 57.1 GtCO2e in 2023, per the UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2024.
• Current policies put the world on track for 2.6 to 3.1°C of warming this century, per UNEP.
• Emissions must fall 42% by 2030 to stay on a 1.5°C path, per UNEP.
• Atmospheric CO2 is at its highest level in 800,000 years, per the WMO.
• Extreme weather is the number-one global risk over the ten-year horizon, with environmental risks taking four of the top five, per the WEF Global Risks Report 2025.
• The US recorded 27 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in 2024, totaling $182.7 billion, per NOAA.
• Global insured catastrophe losses reached about $137 billion in 2024, the fifth straight year above $100 billion, with total economic losses near $318 billion, per Swiss Re Institute.

ESG and sustainable finance

The money is moving, though 2025 brought a sharp sentiment reversal in ESG funds.

• Global sustainable fund assets hit an all-time high of about $3.2 trillion at the end of 2024, per Morningstar.
• Those same funds saw record net outflows through 2025 amid an anti-ESG backlash and regulatory pullback, per Morningstar.
• Global sustainable investment assets were reported at $16.7 trillion in the 2024 review, on a revised methodology that is not comparable to prior editions, per GSIA.
• Green, social, sustainability, and sustainability-linked bond issuance reached about $1.1 trillion in 2024, per the Climate Bonds Initiative.
• Green bonds alone accounted for about $670 billion of that, the largest segment, per the Climate Bonds Initiative.
• Cumulative sustainable-bond issuance passed about $6.9 trillion by the end of 2024, per the Climate Bonds Initiative.
• Global energy-transition investment set a record $2.1 trillion in 2024 and about $2.3 trillion in 2025, per BloombergNEF.

Regulation and disclosure in 2026

This is where 2026 diverges hardest from 2024, and where most roundups are out of date.

• The EU's Omnibus directive, in force March 2026, cut CSRD scope to companies with more than 1,000 employees and over 450 million euros in turnover, per KPMG's analysis.
• That change removes roughly 80% of previously in-scope companies, making the original estimate of about 50,000 reporters historical, per EU Council and advisory analysis.
• The US SEC proposed a full rescission of its climate-disclosure rule in May 2026, after ending its legal defense in 2025, per the SEC.
• 36 jurisdictions have adopted, used, or moved to introduce the ISSB Standards (IFRS S1 and S2), per the IFRS Foundation.
• A record 22,700+ companies disclosed environmental data through CDP in 2024, up 8% year over year, per CDP.
• Only about 2% of CDP-scored companies, roughly 515, earned an "A" in 2024, per CDP.
• 77% of the world's 250 largest companies use GRI Standards, still the most-used framework, per KPMG's 2024 sustainability reporting survey.
• 96 to 98% of the G250 now publish sustainability reports, per KPMG.

Supply chains and Scope 3

For most companies, the real footprint sits outside their own walls.

• Corporate Scope 3 supply-chain emissions are on average about 26 times larger than operational (Scope 1 and 2) emissions, per CDP and BCG.
• Scope 3 averages about 75% of a company's total emissions, and far more in retail, consumer goods, and financials, per CDP.
• Only about 15% of corporates have set a supply-chain emissions target, per CDP and BCG.
• Disclosed upstream emissions in manufacturing, retail, and materials alone imply a carbon liability of $335 billion or more, per CDP and BCG.

Sustainable business travel

This is the slice closest to ITILITE's work: business travel is a Scope 3 category most programs are only starting to manage.

• Under the GHG Protocol, business travel is Scope 3, Category 6, the standard accounting home for corporate travel emissions.
• Aviation accounts for about 2% of global CO2 emissions, per IATA.
• Air travel makes up about 66% of the average company's business-travel emissions, with hotels at 16% and ground transport at 14%, per GBTA's 2025 sustainability benchmark.
• That benchmark drew on 285 companies with a combined $22 billion in annual travel spend, up 20% from the prior year, per GBTA.
• Average travel-program sustainability maturity is just 1.4 out of 5, up from 1.3, per GBTA.
• Only 15% of corporates bought sustainable aviation fuel certificates in 2025, up from 12%, per GBTA.
• SAF production reached about 1 million tonnes in 2024, double 2023, but still only about 0.3% of jet fuel, per IATA.
• SAF could deliver up to 65% of the emissions cuts aviation needs for net zero by 2050, per IATA.

What it means for business leaders

Three threads run through these 64 numbers. The business case is durable: consumers, employees, and top-performing companies still reward sustainability, whatever the political weather. The stakes are climbing faster than the response, with a 1.5°C year already behind us and only 16% of large firms on track. And the regulatory ground has shifted, with the EU and US both pulling back mandates in 2026, which means the pressure now comes more from investors, customers, and physical risk than from disclosure rules.

For most companies, the practical takeaway is to focus where the footprint actually is: Scope 3. Supply chains and business travel dominate the total, and travel is the piece a finance or operations team can start measuring immediately. ITILITE captures per-trip carbon alongside cost on one corporate travel booking platform, so the Scope 3 Category 6 line stops being a year-end estimate and becomes a number you manage per booking.

Methodology and sources

This is an ITILITE report that compiles publicly available statistics from external authorities; it is not a first-party ITILITE study, and no figure here is ITILITE's own data. Statistics were selected for recency (most 2024 to 2026), source authority, and relevance to business leaders. Each stat links to its source. A few carry caveats worth noting: the CSRD scope-reduction percentage rests on advisory-firm analysis of the 2026 Omnibus directive; the GSIA $16.7 trillion figure uses a revised methodology and is not comparable to earlier editions; and NOAA's billion-dollar-disaster dataset was retired in 2025, making 2024 its final official year. Where sources conflicted or could not be verified to a primary document, the figure was cut rather than published.