In the News
Sustainability & The Board - New Report
25 June 2025
NEW report on ‘Sustainability and the Board’: Download here
The Sustainability Leaders Panel is an initiative from Echo Research, Good Business and Mishcon de Reya. Twice a year, we seek insights and perspectives from senior sustainability leaders around the world on the issues that matter.
Find out more about the Panel and Echo’s wider sustainability and ESG research: matt.painter@echoresearch.com
This survey of 91 sustainability leaders from 12 countries explores the ways in which boards are responding to sustainability challenges, how they make decisions and what they prioritise and value.
Top 10 takeaways
1) Most boards are engaged with sustainability issues. They take an active interest and understand the impacts, reputational risks, and commercial imperatives.
2) 49% of respondents report greater board-level interest in sustainability issues over the past year, though 31% see declining appetite at board level to communicate externally on sustainability.
3) Looking ahead to the next 12 months, 37% expect their board to become more ambitious on sustainability (but just 6% say much more so).
4) 56% of respondents say their organisations have conducted a double materiality assessment in the last year. These have fed into changes around target setting, KPIs, risk management, board engagement and resilience planning.
5) 44% of boards have received no sustainability training in the last year, and lack of board-level understanding is cited as an obstacle to greater engagement by 32% of sustainability leaders.
6) 45% of respondents say that the sustainability function is included in board discussions all or most of the time. Of these, 55% report a good level of influence over decisions. This is most often via a CSO or dedicated board executive.
7) Levels of ambition (or lack thereof) are a frustration form any sustainability leaders. To generate more ambition, clearer links between sustainability and financial/ investor interests would be helpful - as would stronger regulatory and policy signals.
8) 63% say they now have to be more careful in the language they use around sustainability and DEI, because sustainability is becoming more divisive in the current political climate.
9) However, fewer sustainability leaders (7-22%) say they feel under pressure to scale back DEI, net-zero or human rights initiatives.
10) In 30% of organisations, boards have no financial incentivisation to hit sustainability targets. Of these, 70% have no plans to introduce sustainability-related incentives in the next year.
