Five trends shaping the sustainability agenda in 2025, and the actions you can take now
From climate and nature, to reporting and ESG tech, we look at five key sustainability trends and how they can be a driver for innovation, growth and value.
Sustainability leaders have a crucial role in tackling ESG challenges and moving their organisations from ambition to action. Progressing from setting sustainability targets to embedding change across multiple functions takes judgement and experience to navigate. Balancing that transformation with commerciality while building trust takes a particularly rare set of human qualities.
Convening to accelerate change
“Speaking to other sustainability professionals who are also trying to engage change within their businesses is key, it’s a great support to have a network there to turn to.”
Lizzie Jones
Group Sustainability Director, Savills
3:52
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3:15
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Inspire, collaborate, communicate
“Successful businesses recognise that sustainability isn't an add-on to their strategy, but rather that it is a fundamental part, deeply embedded into their operations. Championing that culture change and flipping sustainability from a compliance play into a source of competitive advantage is a key part of the CSO’s role that should not be underestimated.”
Zubin Randeria
ESG Leader, PwC UK
0:39
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Understanding the science with Coca-Cola Europacific
Joe Franses, Vice-President, Sustainability
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0:30
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The qualities needed in CSOs with the MOD
James Clare, Director, Climate Change and Sustainability, MOD
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Navigating business success in the new climate reality: three enablers for CSOs
Discover how CSOs can drive business success in the new climate reality with key enablers like data integration, whole-enterprise planning, and collaboration.
ESG tech - an ally for all sustainability leaders
Technology enables faster, more effective decision-making and broader ambitions. Net zero targets, reporting and sustainability goals are complex issues, best faced with robust, timely and insightful data in the hands of the right people. The right tech frees up the ingenuity of the human mind to solve, ideate and create by reducing the time spent on time-consuming manual tasks. Yet identifying and integrating the appropriate tech into organisations is not always straightforward.
At PwC, we have close relationships with the market leaders in new ESG specific technologies, who are delivering innovative solutions to help organisations measure and meet their ESG goals. From carbon accounting, footprinting and reporting, to bespoke risk assessment, decarbonisation and complex data analysis, digital tools can be integrated across all stages of your ESG agenda to deliver impactful results. We’ll share insights, in-house expertise and new developments in sustainability tech regularly in this space.
Explore our shared expertise
4 results
Reframing sustainability reporting
Sustainability reporting demands are growing, but what if we framed it differently? Watch our short film to explore how taking a more strategic approach to sustainability reporting can help you to see beyond compliance, and turn your sustainability ambition into action.
5:38
Rethinking capitalism, redressing inequalities
Financial services have a core role in society, providing essential services from bank accounts to pensions, but many people feel excluded. Here, we discuss the growth of inclusive capitalism and the need for firms to walk the talk with Abrdn.
15:24
Purpose and Profitability
Organisations are under growing pressure to address their impact on the environment and society. But how do they make the right commitments, and how do they combine expertise and insights with technology, to ensure their response is meaningful and measurable? Watch this episode to understand more about meeting ESG commitments, where to begin and how to report progress.
Data and influencing insights
10 results
Turn climate action into competitive advantage
CEOs say climate investments are paying off. And UK investors are backing companies that are taking action on climate-related issues. So how can businesses turn climate action into opportunity?
Net Zero Future50
With over half of the UK’s decarbonisation dependent on technologies that are not yet commercially mature, this report showcases the monumental potential of the UK’s climate tech ecosystem.
Investors back bold moves as businesses face pressure to reinvent
Investors back bold moves as businesses face pressure to reinvent, scale emerging technology, upskill their workforce and manage climate risk. Explore the findings of our UK Investor Survey.
Navigating net zero: beneath the surface of FTSE 100 progress
Are the FTSE 100 matching their net zero ambitions with action? We analyse their decarbonisation plans to explore which climate actions count.
Peer to Peer conversations
5 results
The CEO’s sustainability checklist
Recent analysis shows that climate-related innovation has a positive effect on profit margins. This CEO checklist provides four targeted actions that CEOs can complete to set meaningful change in motion.
For CSOs, decarbonisation is just the beginning
Today’s chief sustainability officers have a lot more on their plate than reducing emissions. To tackle it all, they can’t go it alone.
The evolution of the sustainability leader
Alongside embracing data and tech, sustainability leaders are finding a powerful ally by empowering their workforce to tackle emissions from the ground up.
The CEO’s ESG dilemma
An increased focus on ESG issues presents CEOs with a new challenge: can their company perform well for investors and pursue an ESG strategy at the same time?
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