Despite mounting economic, political and regulatory pressure, nine in 10 sustainability professionals do not expect their organisation’s sustainability ambition – including environmental, social and wider responsible business goals – to decline. Instead, most expect ambition to grow, hold steady or become more targeted and strategic.
New research from the UN Global Compact Networks in Canada, Mexico and the USA, in partnership with GlobeScan, suggests businesses are recalibrating rather than retreating, becoming more selective about where they focus, tying sustainability more closely to business value and embedding it more deeply into strategy, investment and decision-making.
The study reveals that just 10% of sustainability professionals expect their organisation’s sustainability ambition to decrease, despite mounting economic, political and regulatory headwinds. Instead, most expect ambition to increase, remain steady or become more targeted without being reduced overall, suggesting corporate sustainability is entering a more disciplined and strategically focused phase rather than disappearing.
The findings reinforce a wider shift Fair Play Talks identified in its Sustainability in 2026: How Businesses Are Shaping the Green Agenda outlook earlier this year: sustainability is increasingly being treated less as a standalone commitment and more as an issue of business resilience, competitiveness, risk and long-term value.
RESILIENT SUSTAINABILITY AMBITIONS
The research paints a much more nuanced picture than a wholesale retreat from corporate sustainability. Across North America, 57% of respondents say they feel highly or somewhat constrained in advancing their organisation’s sustainability strategy. Customer expectations remain the most commonly cited external influence, selected by 48%, followed by internal cost or resource constraints at 43%, regulatory uncertainty at 40% and differences between global commitments and local realities at 39%.
Yet despite those pressures, only one in 10 expects sustainability ambition itself to decline. The findings echo previous research, in which nine in 10 CEOs said the business case for sustainability was stronger than ever despite geopolitical volatility and economic uncertainty. What does appear to be changing is where businesses concentrate their effort.
The new study finds increased focus on compliance and reporting, internal implementation, collaboration and greater selectivity around sustainability priorities. Areas more likely to have been reduced include external communications, investment and longer-term transformation initiatives. One in five respondents reported reduced external sustainability communications. That suggests some companies may be talking less while becoming more selective about what they fund and implement, rather than abandoning sustainability altogether.
SUSTAINABILITY PRESSURES BY REGION
The North American picture also masks significant differences between markets. Mexico appears to be experiencing the greatest overall constraints: 19% of Mexican respondents say they feel highly constrained and another 48% somewhat constrained, meaning 67% feel at least somewhat constrained. That compares with 58% in Canada, where 27% report feeling highly constrained and 31% somewhat constrained, and 46% in the US, where 12% feel highly constrained and 34% somewhat constrained. But the nature of the pressure also differs.
In Mexico, sustainability professionals highlight structural implementation challenges, including infrastructure gaps, resource limitations, regulatory complexity and internal capability needs. They are also particularly likely to expect sustainability ambition to become more targeted or selective rather than reduced, which the report characterises as pragmatic adaptation.
In Canada, financial constraints and the need to demonstrate economic value emerge as particularly important challenges. A slightly higher proportion of Canadian respondents also expect sustainability ambition to decline compared with the other two markets.
In the US, political, legal and regulatory uncertainty feature more prominently. Respondents report greater pressure around external communications, public participation and longer-term transformation — reflecting what the researchers describe as a more politically sensitive operating environment.
The differences suggest there is no single North American sustainability story. Businesses may share broad ambitions, but the obstacles shaping how those ambitions translate into action vary considerably by market.
SUSTAINABILITY’S BUSINESS VALUE
Perhaps the clearest shift revealed by the study is what organisations increasingly expect from sustainability leaders. More than three-quarters (76%) identify the ability to connect sustainability with business value and risk as one of the most important capabilities sustainability leaders need today.
Meanwhile, 59% say embedding sustainability into core business and investment decisions is the strongest signal of credible sustainability leadership, ahead of measurable progress, governance and accountability. That places far greater pressure on sustainability professionals to translate environmental and social priorities into the language of finance, operations, strategy and risk.
It also connects directly with a challenge Fair Play Talks has previously highlighted. Earlier research found that many businesses were still struggling to measure sustainability ROI, potentially making it harder to secure internal investment and leadership support. The new research suggests that gap has become even more significant.
Difficulty demonstrating business value is now the most commonly cited barrier to deeper sustainability integration, selected by 54% of respondents. Half also identify competing short-term business priorities, while 38% point to a lack of prioritisation from senior leadership.
That shift is also reflected in new World Economic Forum research showing that six in 10 global chief sustainability officers expect sustainability progress to hold steady or accelerate despite significant headwinds. The research suggests a stronger commercial case, advancing technology and resilience are increasingly driving the transition — shifting the challenge from sustainability ambition towards execution and demonstrable business value.
FROM ESG TO REAL BUSINESS INTEGRATION
Corporate sustainability reporting has already become widespread. As previously reported, nearly every large US public company now publishes sustainability or ESG information. But publishing a report does not necessarily mean sustainability is shaping the decisions that matter most.
The GlobeScan study finds sustainability has gained a stronger foothold in areas such as corporate strategy, innovation and enterprise risk management, but remains less integrated into capital allocation, procurement and performance management. That gap matters because those functions determine where organisations actually spend money, how suppliers are chosen, how executives and employees are rewarded and which strategic priorities survive when budgets become tight.
The emerging benchmark for credible sustainability leadership therefore appears to be moving beyond what businesses pledge and disclose towards what sustainability actually changes inside the organisation.
INTEGRATION BARRIERS DIFFER BY COUNTRY
The barriers to deeper integration also vary geographically. In Canada, unclear ownership and insufficient prioritisation by senior leaders are more prominent concerns.
In Mexico, respondents are more likely than their US and Canadian counterparts to identify limited collaboration across teams and insufficient decision-making authority as barriers. Meanwhile, US respondents are particularly likely to point to competing short-term business priorities.
That reinforces one of the report’s central conclusions: sustainability teams cannot achieve deeper integration on their own. Leadership support, cross-functional ownership, aligned incentives, reliable data and genuine decision-making authority are all required.
SUSTAINABILITY PROGESSIONALS LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE
The research also points to a significant evolution in the sustainability profession itself. Technical knowledge remains important, but sustainability professionals increasingly need to influence senior leaders, work across functions, build organisational support and connect environmental and social issues to commercial priorities.
Their role is shifting from delivering individual programmes towards enabling sustainability across the organisation. Roundtable participants also reported changing the language they use internally. Rather than positioning sustainability as a separate agenda, they are increasingly talking about resilience, operational excellence, risk management and long-term value creation.
That shift does not mean the social side of sustainability should disappear. In fact, participants warned that social sustainability continues to lag environmental priorities, with workforce issues, human rights, social performance and wider value-chain impacts struggling to compete against cost and operational pressures.
That is particularly relevant given previous research showing that eight in 10 CEOs felt pressure to improve human sustainability, encompassing areas such as wellbeing, skills, inclusion, purpose and people’s ability to thrive.
SUSTAINABILITY AS A DRIVER OF GROWTH
Greater pressure to demonstrate business value should not necessarily mean lowering ambition. Sustainability itself may create substantial commercial opportunities.
Recent research estimated that technology could help unlock US$15 trillion in markets linked to advancing global sustainability goals. The emerging question for business leaders may therefore be less about whether sustainability creates value, and increasingly about which investments generate the greatest environmental, social and commercial value — and how that value can be measured convincingly.
SUSTAINABILITY ENABLERS: COLLABORATION AND AI
Businesses are also looking beyond their own organisations for solutions. Industry peer collaboration, value-chain partnerships, common standards and practical guidance emerge as important mechanisms for maintaining progress. There are interesting regional differences here too. In the US, 52% want greater alignment around shared standards, compared with 46% in Canada and 45% in Mexico.
Mexican respondents place the greatest emphasis on peer learning, at 49%, and are also considerably more likely to favour public-private dialogue to tackle regulatory barriers, at 39%, compared with 33% in Canada and 26% in the US. Meanwhile, US respondents are much more likely to value confidential forums for discussing sensitive or polarising issues, at 23%, compared with just 6% in Canada and 8% in Mexico.
Artificial intelligence is beginning to play a supporting role too. Some 43% say their organisation is using AI for sustainability data analysis or measurement, while 34% are experimenting with it. But just 6% currently use AI to support sustainability-related risk, investment or prioritisation decisions, suggesting its strategic use remains relatively immature.
WORKPLACE SUSTAINABILITY MATTERS
The findings challenge the idea that growing political and economic pressure necessarily means corporate sustainability is collapsing. Instead, the evidence points towards a recalibration. Organisations appear to be becoming more selective about their priorities, more demanding about business value and more cautious about external communications — while simultaneously trying to integrate sustainability more deeply into mainstream decision-making.
That may ultimately strengthen sustainability by forcing organisations to connect commitments with operations, investment and measurable results. But there is also a risk.
If greater “selectivity” becomes shorthand for focusing only on initiatives with an obvious short-term financial return, harder-to-measure issues – particularly workforce wellbeing, human rights and broader social impacts – could lose ground. The challenge for responsible businesses will therefore be to become more strategic without becoming less responsible.
WHAT RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS LEADERS SHOULD DO NEXT
Rather than treating sustainability as a separate ESG programme, leaders should connect it explicitly to corporate strategy, investment, risk and operational decision-making. They also need stronger ways to measure both financial and non-financial value; give sustainability professionals sufficient influence and decision-making access; create shared ownership across finance, procurement, HR, operations and leadership; and ensure that greater scrutiny of ROI does not push longer-term environmental and social commitments to the margins.
Above all, businesses will increasingly be judged not by the number of sustainability commitments they make, but by whether those commitments actually influence where they invest, how they operate and the value they create for business, people and society.
The message from sustainability professionals across North America is therefore less one of retreat than evolution: ambition remains, but execution, integration and demonstrable value are becoming the new tests of leadership.
Download the full report here.
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