Sustainability no longer lives in a separate workstream. It runs through energy use, supply chains, procurement decisions, compliance processes, and investor reporting. Most companies already have the data. The question is whether they can see it clearly enough to act on it.
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new 2026 report from Sweep and Sustainability Magazine, based on a survey of more than 120 enterprises globally, captures exactly where businesses stand today. The picture is one of real, measurable progress, alongside an urgent opportunity to go further.
Strong foundations are already in place
The headline numbers tell an encouraging story. 91% of businesses now produce annual carbon accounts, and 65% complete their reporting within three months. These are not trivial achievements. They reflect years of investment in sustainability teams, processes, and governance, and they signal that the foundations for something more strategic are already there.
This is the shift that matters: from sustainability as a reporting exercise to sustainability as operational intelligence. Carbon data highlights inefficiencies driving energy spend. Supplier emissions reveal concentration risk in the value chain. Structured ESG data accelerates customer responses and regulatory filings. When sustainability data is centralized and well-managed, it stops being abstract and starts delivering measurable business results.
The compliance wave is an opportunity
The regulatory landscape is expanding rapidly across multiple regions at once. CSRD is in active implementation across the EU, introducing double materiality assessment, value chain reporting, and mandatory assurance. California’s SB 253 and SB 261 require large companies to disclose Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and climate-related financial risks. The UK’s forthcoming Sustainability Reporting Standards are moving toward mandatory adoption for listed companies. And ISSB’s global baseline is being adopted or endorsed across more than 20 jurisdictions.
As Kate Gordon, co-author of California’s climate laws, has said: “These policies aren’t designed to create paperwork. They’re designed to bring climate risk and performance into core business decision-making.”
That framing matters. Compliance investment, done well, builds infrastructure that serves the whole business. The 42% of organizations already realizing cost savings through better carbon data are proof that regulatory requirements and commercial value are not in tension. They reinforce each other.
Currently, only 40% of global businesses report being well prepared or ahead of requirements. That gap represents a real competitive opportunity for those who move decisively now.
Three challenges stand between most businesses and the full value of their sustainability data:
Supplier data collection remains the single most cited barrier globally, with 69% of businesses struggling to gather emissions data from their supply chains. Yet this is also where some of the highest-value insights sit. Procurement leaders who map Scope 3 hotspots are not just meeting reporting requirements; they are identifying concentration risk and protecting margins.
Spreadsheet dependency persists at 59% of businesses. As reporting requirements grow more granular and multi-framework in nature, manual processes are increasingly a liability. More importantly, they lock valuable data inside siloed, unstructured formats where it cannot drive decisions.
Resource constraints affect 32% of organizations. But this challenge has a clear answer: automation. Only 31% of businesses are currently using AI and automation in their sustainability workflows. Among those using dedicated carbon management software, 64% report better data accuracy and improved auditability, 61% experience faster data collection, and 47% have eliminated significant volumes of manual work. Teams freed from manual processing can focus on strategic analysis, stakeholder engagement, and identifying the efficiency opportunities that translate directly into bottom-line value.
