Study Horváth Chief Sustainability Officer Study 2026

Sustainability Leadership Perspectives: Ensure Relevance, Shape the Future

Sustainability remains strategically relevant for companies; however, it is increasingly losing priority in day-to-day operations. Performance pressure, geopolitical uncertainty, and a persistently volatile regulatory environment are shifting the focus of many executive teams toward short-term cost and performance topics. As a result, physical and transition risks, as well as resilience and competitive advantages derived from sustainability, are increasingly moving out of focus. In the long term, however, sustainability continues to be clearly recognized as a key success and competitive factor. Companies that systematically embed ESG into their core business strengthen their strategic resilience, enhance their ability to act in volatile environments, and secure advantages in the competition for capital and talent. 

The Horváth Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) Study 2026 shows: While most companies fundamentally maintain their high level of ambition, around two in five are currently critically reassessing their sustainability ambitions. The internal buy-in built up in recent years is therefore visibly under pressure. At the same time, a high level of ambition is often not matched by a correspondingly strong strategic integration into key business decisions. Artificial intelligence can help unlock the value of sustainability data and improve decision-making.

At a glance

The findings point to clear priorities for action: 

  • Bring sustainability into core business decisions 
    Sustainability must gain greater weight in strategic decisions – such as M&A, investments, location, or portfolio decisions. 

  • Move from ambition to active steering 
    Only consistent, active steering enables target achievement, risk mitigation, and planning reliability. This means ESG targets must be fully translated into governance, target systems, steering logic, and processes – particularly in planning and forecasting. In reporting, sustainability topics are already well established due to increasing disclosure requirements. 

  • Make the business case measurable 
    Ambition without robust monetization is difficult to prioritize in the current economic environment. Companies need to quantify the value contribution of sustainability much more clearly – across revenue and pricing effects, optimized cost of capital, as well as cost and risk reductions—to support investment decisions. 

  • Leverage data, systems, and AI as efficiency drivers 
    Without a reliable data foundation, reporting, steering, and business case development remain fragmented and cannot support sound decision-making. AI is increasingly becoming a key lever for productivity and quality – companies should proactively identify and scale relevant options and use cases. 

About the study

The Horváth CSO Study 2026 is based on more than 300 interviews with senior sustainability leaders conducted between January and April 2026. The participating companies span a wide range of industries, company sizes, and European locations (with a focus on the DACH region), providing robust insights into the current state of sustainability management. 

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