Companies are largely maintaining investment in sustainability despite economic pressures and political headwinds, although professionals increasingly face competing business priorities and regulatory complexity, according to the world’s largest global survey of sustainability practitioners.
The 2026 Sustainability Census, published by sustainability recruitment firm Acre and consultancy SLR, surveyed 2,340 professionals across 76 countries, up from 281 respondents in the inaugural United Kingdom-only survey in 2007, showing the rapid expansion of the profession over the past two decades.
The survey was weighted toward developed markets, with respondents based primarily in the UK (40 per cent), followed by North America (28 per cent) and continental Europe (19 per cent), while Asia-Pacific accounted for 7 per cent, Africa and the Middle East 3 per cent, and South and Central America 2 per cent.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents said their sustainability budgets had either increased or remained unchanged over the past 12 months, including 25 per cent who reported higher spending. While 27 per cent experienced budget cuts, the findings suggest most organisations continue to support sustainability functions despite broader cost pressures.
Team growth has also moderated rather than reversed. 53 per cent of respondents said team sizes were broadly unchanged over the past year, while 29 per cent reported expansion and 17 per cent said their teams had shrunk.
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The never-ending growth and evolution of reporting obligations, while providing work for many, are increasingly regarded as a cost of doing business rather than a driver of change.
Paul Burke, technical director, SLR
Respondents said increased spending was driven primarily by greater strategic prioritisation of sustainability, expanding regulatory and reporting requirements, and investment in new sustainability strategies, tools and data platforms.
Those facing budget pressures most commonly cited company-wide cost-cutting, weaker business performance, broader reprioritisation and headcount reductions.
The findings come as companies navigate increasingly complex sustainability disclosure requirements while also confronting political resistance to environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives, particularly in North America.
Balancing sustainability objectives with competing corporate priorities was identified as the profession’s biggest challenge, cited by 59 per cent of respondents, followed by managing regulatory complexity at 45 per cent. Political and ideological headwinds emerged as a recurring theme in open-ended responses, particularly among North American participants.
Respondents rated their organisations’ commitment to sustainability at an average of 7.3 out of 10, but confidence that companies could deliver on their public commitments was lower at 6.8, pointing to what the report described as a persistent gap between ambition and execution.
Paul Burke, technical director at SLR, said the profession had become significantly larger, more diverse and more senior since the survey was first launched, but many of its core priorities remained remarkably consistent.
“The eight-fold increase in responses tells you something about the growth of the sector,” Burke said in the report.
Female representation in senior leadership has improved substantially over the past two decades, while the global gender pay gap narrowed to 8.6 per cent from 14.9 per cent in the previous survey. However, Burke warned the profession still had further to go.
“There is still more to be done, and the pace needs to quicken, otherwise we risk our public statements around DEI being seen as disconnected from the reality of our own profession,” he said, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives aimed at improving representation and workplace fairness.
The survey found sustainability professionals remain highly qualified, with 64 per cent holding master’s degrees. Burke noted that figure had risen from 46 per cent in 2007 to around 70 per cent when including those with qualifications above master’s level, but questioned whether increasingly demanding educational requirements could become a barrier to entry.
“If a master’s is becoming a prerequisite… is there a danger this acts as a barrier to entry and limits the pool of talent available?” he said.
He also questioned whether an increasingly specialised workforce risked becoming overly focused on technical sustainability expertise at the expense of broader business knowledge.
Despite sweeping changes in regulation and corporate governance over the past two decades, the survey found practitioners continue to devote much of their time to many of the same issues identified in the original 2007 study, including decarbonisation, climate change, social impact and reporting.
Burke said the continued emphasis on climate action reflected organisations’ recognition that decarbonisation requires sustained, long-term investment. However, he said the rapid expansion of sustainability reporting obligations was increasingly viewed as a compliance exercise rather than a catalyst for change.
“The never-ending growth and evolution of reporting obligations, while providing work for many, are increasingly regarded as a cost of doing business rather than a driver of change,” he said.
The survey also suggested the profession is becoming more established within organisations.
C-suite sustainability titles nearly doubled their share of respondents between 2024 and 2026, rising to 4.4 per cent from 2.6 per cent, while analyst-level roles accounted for a smaller share than two years earlier.
Meanwhile, use of the term “ESG” continued to decline. Globally, ESG appeared in 12.5 per cent of job titles this year, down from 15 per cent in 2024, with “sustainability” increasingly becoming the preferred umbrella term. The shift was most pronounced in the United States, where ESG appeared in just 5.6 per cent of job titles, reflecting the political backlash against ESG initiatives.
Career mobility remained high, with nearly 47 per cent of respondents planning to move to another employer within the next year, primarily in pursuit of career progression and higher pay.
