2025 was a challenging year for corporate sustainability. Companies faced shifting regulations, volatile markets, tightening budgets, and growing scrutiny. Sustainability decision makers are keen to get ahead and understand ways to navigate risk while growing impact. So last month, I asked 20 sustainability leaders from my network—representing industries from software to food, and organizations spanning NGOs, Fortune 500s, startups, and venture capital—what they see as emerging themes in 2026. Their insights offer a glimpse into what sustainability leaders may want to pay attention to as they plan the year:
- Addressing the energy impacts of AI: With AI workloads driving a doubling in global data center energy demand by the end of the decade, companies will need to source clean power early to remain in a strong position. According to Elaine Hsieh, COO and partner at VoLo Earth Ventures, we can expect to see more attention on virtual power plants (VPPs) as a practical way to add capacity quickly at grid edge. Hsieh predicted, “VPPs may surprise everyone by becoming the fastest path to unlocking new power. Governments are also expected to keep leaning into fusion, geothermal, and nuclear, treating them as important long-term energy solutions.”
Resurgence of local action and community resilience: As national momentum on sustainability fades, communities have stepped up to fill the gaps. In 2026, leaders predict an outsized opportunity to work with local and regional organizations to help build community and climate resilience.
“I anticipate seeing a surge in fresh, unexpected partnerships across industries to drive meaningful, rapid, and ideally intersectional, impact,” said Charlie Reed, global sustainability lead at Intuit, which has partnered with organizations such as The Farmlink Project to reduce food waste and emissions. “Outside-the-box thinking is required to make true sustainability progress, and companies may realize that their most potent sustainability lever may lie in collaborating with a small or new organization they’d not previously considered.”
Amy Kull Lithgow, director of development and communications at Sierra Harvest, predicts that local micro-utilities, resilience hubs, mutual-aid networks, and civic coalitions will grow rapidly, particularly in regions hit hardest by extreme weather and/or economic instability. She shared a recent example of fruit gleaning efforts in Western Nevada County in California, which prevented food waste and provided SNAP food assistance recipients with fresh apples, mandarins, and persimmons.
Risk rising on the corporate agenda: Physical risk from climate change is predicted to represent $1.2 trillion annually by 2050 and regulatory forces like CSRD will continue to shape how large companies think about climate risk. Joel Makower, chairman and co-founder of Trellis Group and strategy director at Music Sustainability Alliance, predicts risk will become more embedded across overall planning. “Rather than being siloed under sustainability, climate risk will be part of financial planning, insurance assessment, asset valuation, capital expenditure, and long-term corporate strategy.”
Companies must conduct detailed climate risk assessments to inform strategy and disclosure requirements as pressure from stakeholders grows. And as physical threats from climate intensify, companies and governments must urgently build resilience into value chains, infrastructure and operational plans.
Sharpening how we value nature: The last five years have ushered in more corporate attention to the risks and value associated with nature. Brian Rosevear, VP of public affairs and communications at The Nature Conservancy Canada, believes 2026 will be defined less by high-level commitments, and more by an increase in strategic investment in the natural systems that fuel our lives and livelihoods.
“It's the idea of seeing nature as an investable asset,” he said. “It’s not built, and it doesn’t carry a price tag in the way pipes or power lines do, but it performs just as reliably: buffering floods, filtering water, storing carbon, cooling cities, supporting food systems. Companies may focus more on safeguarding the natural assets that directly or indirectly support their operations. Communities may rely more on natural buffers instead of costly engineered fixes. And governments may see land conservation and restoration as part of their long-term infrastructure planning.”
Continued evolution of carbon markets and a new era of transparency: Carbon markets continued to grow and evolve in 2025, and the same trajectory is expected for 2026. On the demand side, Kelley Vendeland, VP of marketing and sustainability at Energy Recovery, is tracking how rising AI-related demand for energy is intensifying competition for high-quality carbon removal credits as companies seek to balance rising emissions, a dynamic that could help accelerate maturity in the carbon market. Akin to the expected (and hoped for) quality improvement in the market, there is also an appetite for more transparency and clear differentiation in how we talk about carbon.
Harris Cohn, head of sales at Charm Industrial, predicts in 2026, “The climate standard setters and journalists start better distinguishing between carbon capture and storage and durable carbon removals,” delineating between carbon neutral approaches and the net negative approaches needed for net zero. Beyond carbon markets, the desire for broader transparency and authenticity continues.
Nima Farshchi, executive director and lecturer at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, summarizes this sentiment, predicting a future driven by good intentions and transparency. “I think any company that is willing to take a stand on sustainability is doing so out of genuine alignment and part of a conscious culture, not driven to do so out of disingenuous beliefs.”
What do these predictions mean for communicators? We will need to spend far less time elevating high-level commitments and far more time translating complex, operational decisions into language stakeholders can understand and trust. As issues like AI energy demand, climate risk, nature investment, and carbon quality move closer to the core of business strategy, communications will need to reflect real constraints, tradeoffs, and timelines, not just ambition. Whether it’s more specific language around carbon removal or more contextualization to drive trust with local partners, it means grounding sustainability narratives in specific actions amidst a more uncertain and scrutinized landscape.
As we set our sights on 2026 and progress into the second half of the Global Goals’ Decade of Action, it’s clear the year ahead won’t offer simplicity. But these insights could provide sustainability leaders a sharper sense of how they can move forward with more confidence and clarity, underpinned by a sharper understanding of where they can expand their impact while navigating risks.
