Chief Sustainability Officers' Outlook September 2026
The inaugural Chief Sustainability Officers’ Outlook captures the perspective of 103 members of the World Economic Forum’s global Chief Sustainability Officers Community on how the transition is unfolding. Overall, 63% expect progress to hold steady or accelerate over the next year, while over the medium term, a stronger business case and cheaper, more applicable technologies are the leading expected accelerators. At the same time, policy uncertainty, short-term pressures and geopolitical volatility are making progress more uneven across markets and sectors.
The inaugural Chief Sustainability Officers’ Outlook captures the perspective of 103 members of the World Economic Forum’s global Chief Sustainability Officers Community on how the transition is unfolding. Overall, 63% expect progress to hold steady or accelerate over the next year, while over the medium term, a stronger business case and cheaper, more applicable technologies are the leading expected accelerators. At the same time, policy uncertainty, short-term pressures and geopolitical volatility are making progress more uneven across markets and sectors.
The outlook explores what this means inside companies: sustainability is moving deeper into commercial, operational and investment decisions; AI offers new execution capabilities alongside resource trade-offs; and adaptation is becoming a core question of resilience and capital allocation. Across these themes, the report points to a central challenge for chief sustainability officers and business leaders: translating sustainability into decisions that create value, strengthen resilience and can withstand changing economic, political and geopolitical conditions.