The Visionary CEO’s Guide to Sustainability 2026 Navigating divergence

September 12, 2026

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(Bain & Company) Sustainability has entered an age of divergence. Over the past decade, $17 trillion has been invested in sustainable technologies—$4 trillion more than expected. But progress has been radically uneven. Only a handful of key green technologies have met or exceeded expectations. Most have fallen short.

Look beneath prevailing narratives, and surprises emerge. Consumer concern about sustainability is climbing. AI’s environmental impact, consumer reaction, and corporate priorities are increasingly out of step. Following one of the hottest summers on record in many countries, climate risks are intensifying, and insurance and supplier diversification address only part of companies’ exposure.

CEOs must understand where change is happening, where it is stalling, and why. They can neither retreat nor assume technology will solve every problem.

In this year’s Visionary CEO’s Guide to Sustainability, Bain experts uncover what is changing and offer practical perspectives to help leaders build conviction and act.

Competitive advantage will come from concentrating capital where leaders believe opportunity will emerge faster than the market expects—not from investing broadly or pulling back.

Selected Highlights

How CEOs are charting the course

Why concern is climbing

See what’s shaping the shift

Rethink your climate risk

From AI ambition to advantage

Turn sustainability into opportunity

...

The New Investment Playbook for Sustainability

How investors can turn sustainability into a source of long-term competitive advantage.

READ MORE

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$17 trillion invested in sustainable technologies over past decade, but investments, technology and progress are diverging (Bain & Company/PR Newswire)

Excerpt from Reuters: Among the challenges: three sectors – Bain calls them "stranded sectors" – agriculture, manufacturing and materials, and natural capital - received less than 10% of investment while accounting for 37% of global greenhouse emissions.

While renewable energy has offered strong returns, things like alternative proteins, advanced chemical recycling or bio-based plastics haven't paid off as much. Yet. As the report states about another promising-but-not-breakthrough technology, green hydrogen:

"A breakthrough in electrolyzer technology (such as capillary-fed electrolysis) together with access to cheap renewable electricity could unlock competitively priced green hydrogen. This, in turn, would enable a step change in green steel, fertilizers, shipping fuels, and other downstream applications, potentially disrupting whole sectors such as industrials, agriculture, and transport."

Another finding: among 7,500 consumers surveyed, 85% said they worry about environmental sustainability, up from 79% last year. Extreme weather like floods, heatwaves and wildfires continue to drive concerns and have led people to "act sustainably but often don't describe their actions as sustainable," the report states. For instance, they limit home energy use to save money, not the planet. But those varied motivations lead to the same green results.

Bain's van den Branden said what could ultimately determine the outcome will be how quickly less-developed economies transition away from things like coal power, particularly in Asia.

"The swing factor is less in the U.S. or Europe. The swing factor is in India, China, and Southeast Asia. That's where the rate of electrification of things like electric vehicles will really lead us to a 2-degree world versus a 2.5-degree world," he said. (His figures refer to the level of warming expected over pre-industrial levels, expressed on the Centigrade scale.)

Technically, the report is written as recommendations for "Visionary CEOs" but in practice it's a good read for anyone concerned about corporate environmental strategy. A CEO's job, van den Branden said, is to be aware of the trends and to decide where to invest resources as technologies – even lagging ones – start to look more promising, and as severe weather events become more common. READ MORE

Excerpt from Bain & Company/PR Newswire: "Ten years into the Paris Agreement, the world has made commendable sustainability achievements, but this summer's record-breaking heat is a reminder that we need to do more," said Jean-Charles van den Branden, Bain's global head of Sustainability. "Today's CEO must recognize this age of divergence for what it is: not a sign of failure, but an opportunity to place the right bets for the future. CEOs will need to understand how to leverage divergence as a source of competitive advantage, converge priorities across the firm to harness AI for its full sustainability benefits and ask the right questions about climate resilience."

Environmental concern among consumers is rising again – and even sustainability skeptics are adopting sustainable habits

For the first time in three years, environmental concern is on the rise. This year, 85% of the 7,500 consumers across US, UK, Italy, Brazil and Indonesia, surveyed by Bain say they are concerned about environmental sustainability, up from 79% last year. Experience of extreme weather – including heatwaves, floods, and wildfires – remains consumers' biggest environmental worry. Concern is particularly high among younger consumers and those in fast-growing markets.

Bain's research also found that consumers are living more sustainably. Adoption of sustainable habits continues to increase year-over-year across all categories. Eighty-three percent of respondents have adopted three or more sustainable lifestyle habits, up from 73% in 2023. Even among consumers who say they do not care about sustainability, nearly half now practice three or more sustainable habits, compared with 35% in 2023. Their primary motivation, however, is often not the environment. This is a consumer version of the "do-say" gap: individuals act sustainably but cite motivations related to economics, health or resilience rather than sustainability. Consumers are willing to pay 18% more for a sustainable product on average, rising to 24% when it also offers a health benefit. More than half also say they shop locally more than they did before, primarily to support local businesses and strengthen security of supply.

Recent extreme weather also underscores the importance of resilience for today's businesses. Disaster losses are rising 5-7% each year and the gap between total and insured losses remains large. But Bain's research suggests climate disruption will not affect every company equally. As disruption intensifies, value can shift toward companies that are better prepared through higher market share and stronger revenues.

Bain analyzed nearly 150,000 assets across 12 sectors to demonstrate that all assets have specific moments when resilience can be built in at relatively low incremental cost. The research shows that some industries have many more opportunities than others. For example, solar companies can embed resilience into new builds from the start and have more frequent refurbishment opportunities. By contrast, more established capital-intensive industries like steel and cement see refurbishment opportunities only every 25-35 years, making missed moments potentially decades-long lock-ins.

Three forces of divergence in sustainable AI – executives vs. consumers, shapers vs. laggards, and business leaders vs. sustainability leaders

One of the largest perception gaps Bain uncovered concerns the energy impact of artificial intelligence, with executives overestimating energy use 16-fold and consumers almost 30-fold.

In a Bain survey of 400 senior professionals, executives expect AI to consume around 11% of global energy three years from now, while consumers expect 19%. But Bain's proprietary climate-economic modeling tool, IntersectSM, forecasts a much smaller share: 0.7%. While their calculations are incorrect, the concern is real and is driving meaningful changes in behavior. Nearly two-thirds of consumers surveyed by Bain report taking concrete action due to their concerns about AI, such as limiting what they share, switching platforms, dropping certain tools or speaking out publicly.

Companies themselves are diverging into distinct camps. Among shapers – companies with the highest AI and sustainability maturity and adoption – 90% see AI as a major opportunity to advance their sustainability goals. Among laggards, that figure has fallen to 41% from 57% last year. Experience appears to be reinforcing this divide. Shapers have actively adopted 86% of the sustainable AI use cases covered in Bain's survey, enabling them to see tangible results. Companies with fewer successful applications risk losing conviction before they capture the technology's potential.

There is another divide inside companies. The sustainability executives building the case for sustainable AI and the leaders and general managers making the business decisions needed to scale it are focused on different priorities. When evaluating sustainable AI investments, business leaders (C-suite and general managers) rank financial return first; sustainability professionals rank regulatory compliance and risk management ahead and financial return fourth. The case is being argued in one language and being judged and funded in another.

Taken together, Bain's findings challenge two narratives: that the sustainability transition is broadly retreating, and that it is advancing uniformly. Instead, investment, technology, corporate action, and consumer behavior are moving at very different speeds. The companies best positioned to create value will be those that understand those differences – scaling proven opportunities, anticipating where technology, policy, or behavior could trigger the next acceleration, and building resilience against disruptions that are already materializing.

Other chapters in the report include "The Energy Transition Runs Through Asia" – how Asia is driving disruption, competition, supply, and investment in the energy transition; and "The New Investment Playbook for Sustainability" – how concentrated ownership creates a decarbonization execution advantage and how acting on climate risk and policy engagement can differentiate sustainability investors. READ MORE