The Webinar Ended – The Questions Didn't

During our webinar discussing the findings from the 2026 Verdantix global corporate survey, we received a huge number of questions and were unable to answer all of them. While we didn’t have time in the webinar, we would like to answer a few further questions below:

How is resiliency being used to bolster business cases for sustainability?

Firms are using resiliency to strengthen sustainability business cases by repositioning investment as a means to reduce operational risk, protect continuity and create long-term value – rather than as simply a compliance-led or values-led agenda. Sustainability leaders are using risk-based framing to link environmental action to operational security: anticipating supply chain disruption and resource scarcity, prioritizing material physical climate and water risks, and demonstrating how sustainability performance supports productivity and crisis preparedness, whilst also reducing costs (see Verdantix Strategic Focus: Leveraging Sustainability For Operational Resilience).

What are organizations doing to bridge gaps in their sustainability data?

Organizations are bridging sustainability data gaps by replacing fragmented, manual processes with centralized digital platforms. Alongside this, firms are integrating sustainability data into procurement, product design and supply chain planning, where data availability and granularity gaps have become particularly visible. To support this, sustainability leaders are continuing to invest in software and services for support across their corporate sustainability initiatives, supply chains and products.

How are AI opportunities and concerns being managed by sustainability leaders?

AI is having a significant impact on sustainability teams, who are moving from using AI for reporting support towards implementing AI for performance analysis and decision-useful insight. Adoption is still at an early stage, but many firms are optimistic about integrating AI into their sustainability workflows: 65% of sustainability leaders believe agentic AI will transform sustainability data use beyond reporting. However, results from our survey show that concerns about AI’s implications on sustainability performance are material from both a reputational and environmental perspective. Almost half (48%) of sustainability leaders cite the environmental footprint of AI as a top 3 barrier to its adoption. Alongside this, 78% of organizations identified the risk of introducing errors or inaccuracies within their sustainability workflows as a top 3 barrier to AI adoption. Sustainability leaders also remain divided on how AI agents should be deployed with concerns around hallucinations, unintended bias and security gaps, making human verification and governance frameworks important safeguards.

Together, these trends highlight how sustainability leaders are moving beyond reporting and compliance to drive resilience and improve decision-making while seeking to embed sustainability in broader business objectives. To learn more, watch the full webinar on demand here: The State Of Sustainability: 2026 Global Sustainability Priorities, Spend And AI.