Sustainability reporting has matured, yet business practices and processes have not kept up. In this article, key findings from the Trialogue Sustainable Business Tracker 2026 research are discussed. Data from 52 companies that completed the Trialogue Sustainability Self-Assessment between January and July 2026 are included in the analysis.
Finding 1: Commitment without quantification
Values led by leadership scored highly, as did business purpose and risk and opportunity identification, but two indicators tied to the commercial side of organisations rated poorly. These were the definition of a business case for sustainability and leadership managing trade-offs between commercial and sustainability decisions.
Almost 80% of companies committed to a sustainability ambition before formulating a business case or identifying the return on investment and 62% said the business case was only partially considered and not formally documented. Only 30% of boards debated trade-offs between ambition and daily practice, 10% proactively and a further 20% once the issue was brought to their attention. The rest left trade-offs to executives to settle on a case-by-case basis.
Without a documented rationale, investment in sustainable practice competes for capital based on sentiment rather than finance. Half of respondents sought compliance with a range of standards instead of defining their ambition first. But an ambition defined by shifting reporting standards has to be rewritten every time those standards change.
Finding 2: Oversight without capability
Boards scored highest on oversight and lowest on capability. Board capacity on sustainability and diversity of sustainability experience were weak.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said half or fewer of their board members held relevant sustainability qualifications or experience and more than 10% said none did. Fewer than 25% ran regular training or briefings on emerging issues and in most cases capacity-building happened only once an issue arose.
Only 21% of boards proactively led development of the sustainability ambition. Forty percent said executives set it with some board involvement, 29% said the board signed off only and five companies reported that their boards were not involved at all.
A 2025 briefing by Just Share found that 22 of the top 40 company boards had no director holding a formal sustainability-related qualification. Although a qualification is not the same as experience, the message is that boards are overseeing issues they are not fully equipped to interrogate and the result is less challenge and fewer probing questions.
Finding 3: Data is scattered and manual
Sustainability data management systems scored second lowest of all indicators. Eighty-five percent of companies described their metrics as scattered across multiple systems, manually compiled and fragmented.
No board would accept financial data assembled this way. Yet, non-financial data that informs capital and remuneration decisions is sitting in ad hoc spreadsheets without assurance. Without integrated systems, basic business disciplines relating to performance review and reward cannot be managed.
Sustainability in supply chain contracts was among the five weakest results. For 57% of companies, supplier audits were informal or ad hoc, weakly enforced or non-existent, and only 10% included sustainability requirements in audited supplier terms.
Finding 4: Measurement without consequence
Measurement is in place but without consequence management. Key performance indicators (KPIs) for material issues, time-based targets, benchmarking and remuneration linked to performance were among the lowest of all indicators in the study.
About a quarter of organisations claimed KPIs existed for all material issues, while a third said they existed for only a few or none. Where KPIs were in place they were nearly always accompanied by time-based targets, which was encouraging. About half benchmarked against peers on most or all indicators. A third linked pay to all or most material issues, a third to a few, and a third had no sustainability KPIs linked to remuneration. Assurance scored poorly overall.
Measurement without external benchmarks, financial incentives or independent verification is record-keeping rather than performance management.
Where leadership deliberately builds measurement discipline, embedment is strong. Where it does not, it is weak or absent. With mandatory disclosure and assurance regimes advancing, that gap becomes a regulatory cost as well as a reputational one.
Finding 5: Sustainability is better embedded at large companies
Half the sample consisted of large companies, which rated themselves an average of 7.3 out of 10 overall, while the balance of smaller companies rated themselves lower at 5.4 out of 10. With more resources and dedicated personnel, larger companies have better embedded sustainability. Sector was less of a differentiator.
How to improve sustainability embedment
- Document a return-on-investment assessment, so that the sustainability ambition carries weight in capital allocation and incentive design.
- Recruit or develop directors so that most hold relevant qualifications or experience and replace ad hoc briefings with scheduled training.
- Build one integrated system that tracks every material issue from a single source.
- Set comprehensive requirements in supplier terms, reinforced by ongoing audits rather than one-off onboarding checks.
- Extend remuneration linkage to all material issues rather than a select few, in both short and long-term incentive schemes.
