Sustainability Reporting Isn’t Dead. It’s Becoming More Disciplined.

Elizabeth Kelly

Director

Close

Elizabeth Kelly

Contact Elizabeth Kelly

Valerie Lee

Director

Close

Valerie Lee

Contact Valerie Lee

Table of Contents

• The fundamentals have not changed
• Stakeholder expectations are still strong
• Reporting drives strategic alignment and action
• Sustainability reporting is changing for the better
• How Anthesis can help

Share this article

• Share via Linkedin
• Share via Facebook
• Share via X
• Share via Email

Over the past two years, sustainability reporting has faced sustained pressure. Political headwinds, shifting regulations, and mixed market signals have left many companies questioning what to report, how to approach it, and whether it’s still worth the effort.

Despite the noise, the reality is more stable than headlines suggest. Most companies haven’t stepped away from reporting at all. In fact, the vast majority continued publishing sustainability reports in 2025 – including 92% of the S&P 500 and nearly half of the Russell 3000. What we’re seeing isn’t a retreat, but a reset. Companies are becoming more deliberate in their reporting. They are tightening scope, scrutinising disclosures, and focusing on what truly matters.

Sustainability reporting isn’t disappearing; it’s maturing.

The fundamentals have not changed

At its core, sustainability reporting is still about helping companies understand, manage, and communicate what matters most to their stakeholders. That hasn’t changed.

What has changed is the complexity. Companies now need to navigate an increasingly fragmented landscape of voluntary standards, regulatory requirements like CSRD and ISSB, and rising expectations for data accuracy and auditability. As a result, internal teams from legal to finance to sustainability are having to work more closely together.

 This raises practical questions:

• How should voluntary reporting evolve alongside regulatory disclosures?
• Where can AI help – and where is human engagement still essential?
• Should companies scale back, or double down?

These questions also reinforce an important point: a strong reporting strategy remains a powerful tool. It helps companies demonstrate risk management, articulate value creation, track progress, and align teams internally – but it’s becoming increasingly challenging to get it right.

Stakeholder expectations are still strong

One reason reporting persists is simple: demand has not gone away.

Investors continue to view issues like climate risk and economic inequality as financially material. ESG ratings agencies still rely heavily on publicly disclosed information. B2B customers continue to use sustainability data in decision-making. In practice, expanding supply chain engagement strategies, and associated tools such as EcoVadis, have widened the scope of sustainability reporting beyond large, public companies to a greater ecosystem of smaller suppliers seeking to meet the sustainable procurement requirements of their more established customers.

Within companies, sustainability reporting serves multiple practical purposes. It informs RFP responses, supports investor and customer questionnaires, and feeds into marketing, training, and internal communications. It also plays a role in talent attraction and retention. Employees continue to expect transparency on issues that affect them, and many want to work for companies that can clearly articulate their broader impact. The most effective companies recognise this and actively engage internal stakeholders, including investor relations, sales, marketing, and leadership, to understand how reporting is used and where it creates value.

Reporting drives strategic alignment and action

Done well, reporting is not just a communications exercise—it’s an operational one.

It forces companies to clarify priorities, set targets, define strategies, and assign ownership It helps to ensure that sustainability efforts are connected to broader business objectives. And it creates accountability by linking commitments to external disclosures and timelines.

At the same time many stakeholders are doubling down on their demand for sustainability information, and the rise of anti-ESG backlash has made communicating on these issues more complex. Companies can navigate this by grounding their message in clear business relevance and values that resonate across audiences.

Sustainability reporting is changing for the better

We recommend companies look at the following three areas to evolve their approach to reporting:

1. More disciplined content selection

Companies are becoming far more intentional about what they include in their reporting. This means aligning disclosures with regulatory requirements, stakeholder expectations, and overall business strategy—while also working closely with legal teams to assess potential risks.

Companies in scope for sustainability regulations are required to identify material risks and be ready to disclose how they are managed including relevant actions, policies, and commitments. While CSRD requires a broader lens of double materiality and ISSB only focuses on financial materiality, both frameworks require companies to expand the aperture of their risk assessments to include sustainability-related risks. This necessitates deeper connections between sustainability teams and financial reporting and internal audit teams who determine thresholds for financial materiality. Strong coordination between these teams is essential to establishing assurance-ready data processes.

As companies begin regulatory reporting, it becomes even more important to think carefully about audience demands—including data included in key ratings, investor inquiries, and customer questionnaires—to make sure that they are being met in regulatory reporting and/or through supplemental voluntary reporting.  The companies that are navigating this well are doing the work now to understand where there are overlaps between regulatory requirements and specific audience demands and getting aligned internally to report on those topics.

Companies with no regulatory requirements are bringing this same disciplined approach to identify report content and data disclosures that help ensure their sustainability reporting is responsive to stakeholder demands, peer practice, voluntary frameworks, and ESG rating criteria. 

Questions to consider:

• How will regulatory reporting affect your company?
• What might change for your competitors, suppliers, and customers?
• Do you have alignment on how voluntary reporting should evolve alongside that?
• Are your internal partnerships set up to deliver it?

2. Streamlined reporting formats

More focused content naturally leads to more streamlined reports. Some companies are maintaining similar page counts, but many are reducing content by 20–30%, prioritising clarity over volume. Others are rethinking format entirely—shifting toward summary reports that clearly articulate strategies, or concise data-driven fact sheets supported by case studies hosted on thecompany website and blog. And this work continues to be human led, with AI tools being used as one of many inputs to drive efficiencies.

There’s no single “right” format. What matters is creating a reporting ecosystem where information is easy to find and tailored to reach a company’s stakeholders.

Question to consider:

• Have you assessed your full suite of sustainability communications to understand what is driving impact?
• How effectively are you engaging and informing your priority stakeholders?

3. Stronger data governance and processes

As scrutiny increases, so does the need for robust data management. Sustainability teams can no longer operate in isolation. Instead, successful reporting depends on close coordination internally.

Companies are investing in systems and processes to ensure their data is accurate, traceable, and audit ready. This includes assessing readiness for regulatory frameworks, establishing robust data governance, implementing tools to streamline data collection, and clearly defining roles and responsibilities across teams.

Questions to consider:

• Which existing data management tools can your team leverage or utilise more effectively?
• What new investments need to be made?
• Are roles and responsibilities clearly defined and are internal partnerships working as intended?

How Anthesis can help

Sustainability reporting is evolving, but its core purpose remains the same: to provide a clear, credible view of how a company manages risk, creates value, and contributes to broader societal goals.

The companies that are succeeding today aren’t stepping back. They’re refining their approach—focusing on what matters most, strengthening data and processes, and aligning reporting more closely with business strategy.

If your reporting isn’t working for you, it may be time to make a change—towards more defined metrics, clearer links to business value, and greater alignment with stakeholder needs.

Anthesis supports some of the most well-known and respected companies in developing fit-for-purpose sustainability reporting.