A recent study by the IBM Institute for Business Value on over 3,000 CEOs and public sector leaders has found that 50% of CEOs now report that their compensation is linked to the sustainability performance of their organisation. This is a huge increase from the 15% reported in the previous year. Yet, over the same period, sustainability has dropped from third to fifth on CEOs' priority lists for their organisations.

With financial gain to be had from meeting ESG goals, it is surprising that the report emphasised that only 10% out of the 95% of companies that have operational ESG goals, have made significant progress towards achieving them. As a result, it cannot come as a surprise that some are beginning to describe ESG targets as toothless and that consumer trust in corporate sustainability has dropped by more than half.

Executives believe that the main reason companies are struggling to deliver on ESG targets is due to inadequate data. With difficulties in analysing large amounts of manual data, the most successful companies are using advanced analytics, automatic processes and AI to boost performance and deliver on goals. By aligning sustainability strategy with digital transformation, a company grows its revenue by an extra 41%. Therefore, it is imperative that companies implement digital solutions alongside sustainability targets in order to get the best outcome.