Guess there are no more excuses for sustainability professionals. A new report from Morgan Stanley, Sustainable Signals, Corporates 2025, shows that while “high investment needs again top the list of challenges, with 24% naming this in their top three barriers to delivering on their sustainability strategies”,
“83% say they can measure the return on investment (ROI) for their sustainability activities in a similar way to non-sustainability initiatives. Only 10% report some difficulties, and just 2% say it is much more difficult.”
That is pretty amazing. Here is a graph from the report:
Other interesting points from the report:
- “22% say their sustainability investments mostly focus on capex/R&D for new projects, while another 30% point to opex for risk reduction. Another 31% say they pursue a combination of the two.”
- “57% of companies experienced an impact on their operations from climate-related events in the past year… Extreme weather or storms rank second (53%) and are the most common in North America (57%). Increased costs are the most common way that businesses are impacted (54%), followed by worker disruption (40%) and revenue losses (39%)”
- “A quarter of companies see increased profitability as the most significant opportunity for sustainability to create value over the next five years…. although cost remains a key concern.”
If sustainability is dead, looks like some companies didn’t see the obituary.
Members can read more about business value/ROI of sustainability here.
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