Sustainability Moves from Compliance to Business Value

As sustainability delivers value, CEOs, consumers and B2B buyers remain committed to it, according to a recent survey, The Visionary CEO’s Guide to Sustainability 2025 from Bain & Company. 

The survey shows that the decline in sustainability as a priority between 2023 and 2024 is bottoming out. While CEOs speak less about sustainability today, they continue to act. Analyzing over 35,000 statements made by 150 leading companies’ CEOs in 2018, 2022, and 2024, Bain’s AI-powered Sustainability Pulse tool identified a clear evolution in rhetoric: CEOs are moving away from viewing sustainability through a compliance and moral lens toward aligning sustainability with business value.

Analysis based on Bain’s proprietary decarbonization lever library finds that 25% of global carbon dioxide emissions can be abated profitably today, through ROI-positive levers such as those that improve energy efficiency, build circular design, or support supply chain localization.

The report recommends CEOs scale and accelerate these levers now, making them part of their business-as-usual decision-making. An additional 32% of emissions reduction levers could become profitable in the medium term, the report finds. Their progress will be shaped by changes in policy, technology, and customer behavior.

“After the initial years of bold ambitions and target setting, CEOs took a reality check on their sustainability agenda last year," said Jean-Charles van den Branden, Bain’s global sustainability practice leader, in a statement. "Today, CEOs might speak less about sustainability but what they lack in words, they make up in action, a phenomenon we call the ‘do-say’ gap. We have identified profitable decarbonization levers ready for companies to power their net-zero journey. To succeed, companies need to accelerate what already works, anticipate disruptions and build robustness.

“Our surveys find that more B2B buyers are sourcing for sustainable suppliers and B2C consumers care deeply about the issue and reward companies that make innovative, affordable, and sustainable products.

Using AI in Sustainability 

Van den Braden also noted that "this year is companies’ rising use of AI to deliver sustainable impact. Those that act sustainably do so because there are tangible returns.”

AI adoption in sustainability has surged, the report finds. Companies use AI to cut energy use, reduce waste, enhance workplace safety, and accelerate toward their sustainability goals.

 Of the 400 C-suite and sustainability executives recently surveyed by Bain & Company in nine countries, almost 80% say they see high or very high opportunity for AI to contribute to their sustainability agenda.

Yet more than 50% are still in the initial stages of piloting and exploring these AI applications. The top 20% leaders, mostly in technology and manufacturing sectors, use AI in sustainability efforts three times more often than laggards and are nearly thrice more likely to focus on its long-term value creation.

However, industries need to be mindful of the environmental impact of scaling AI, the report warns. Bain’s proprietary climate-economic modeling tool, INTERSECT, finds that in a high-growth scenario, AI and data centers could emit 810 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2035, or 2% of global emissions and 17% of industrial emissions.

In the US, this translates to the share of AI-driven industrial emissions increasing from 18% in 2022 to more than 50% by 2035.

“Powering data centers is an extremely energy-intensive affair and regions where fossil fuels dominate would see a greater impact on emissions. In contrast, Europe’s accelerated transition to renewable energy and more measured AI adoption are expected to keep emissions relatively stable,” said van den Branden.