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Drawing on insights from ISEP members and interviews with key leaders in the UK, the State of the Sustainability Profession 2025 report reveals that sustainability roles have changed over the past year as organisations focus on regulatory compliance and value protection, with climate action taking precedence over societal issues and nature enhancement, although many businesses are still not measuring their greenhouse gas emissions.
Sustainability and environmental roles still offer good salaries, with most people receiving a pay rise in the past year. Noticeably, however, the gender pay gap has widened, especially at senior management and board or C-suite levels. Positively, very few CEOs are described as ‘laggards’ over green initiatives, and nearly half of sustainability functions report directly to the board or CEO.
Investment in sustainability and the environment has increased or remained static for most, with transport and logistics, food production and processing, and the built environment sectors experiencing the most positive change. Sustainability professionals expect their responsibilities to grow further, and anticipate a heightened need for soft skills as they look to persuade leaders to make sustainable business decisions in a challenging economic and political climate.
"Although geopolitical impacts such as the ‘Trump effect’ are leading professionals and businesses to re-examine priorities, most see this as a bit of a blip. While specific shifts will affect some sectors and markets, they say sustainability isn’t going away. Nature is the next big focus area for investment, not just to add financial value, but because nature is seen as a solution to some of the challenges businesses face in cutting emissions, with the climate and biodiversity crises recognised as being closely connected.
Sustainability professionals are also concerned about the rise of AI, but conversations I have had with major tech providers highlighted how the technology will help support decision-making and crunching the massive amounts of data that we need to deal with in this sector and profession. It will free people up to do the real value-adding work, but we need to be very mindful of the emissions attached to using the technology. It’s an issue that ISEP will explore further in future research.
I was surprised by the number of businesses that are still not measuring their greenhouse gas emissions, even those that are material to them. However, the number that said their budget has increased or stayed the same over the past year is encouraging, despite what feels like a pressure-cooker moment in time for sustainability professionals."
The most common job title among the survey respondents is ‘head of sustainability’. People in this job typically have 11 or more years’ experience; 24% have six or fewer years’ experience. Of the 101 respondents with ‘head of’ job titles, 52% are chartered environmentalists (CEnv) and 37% have a sustainability and environment-related postgraduate degree.
The survey also found that 40% of respondents have experienced responsibility shifts since last year – although 56% have seen no change – focusing more on reporting and disclosures, and compliance management and assurance.
Many jobs encompass a range of responsibilities, with waste management, climate change mitigation and energy efficiency the most common, which maps to regulatory and cost control pressures.
Equity, diversity and inclusion, human rights and modern slavery, and social impacts come low down on the list of responsibilities. This may be because they often sit with human resources departments, but it could also point to an area of underinvestment.
Salaries: despite challenging macro-economic times, salaries are on the rise. However, the gender pay gap has widened:
The gender pay gap has regressed to 2018 levels. Men’s salaries are:
higher than women’s. Up from 8.75% in 2022, and closer to the 14.1% gap last seen in 2018. The gap widens at senior management and board or C-suite level, where male salaries are higher respectively by
Equity, diversity and inclusion: 7.1% of respondents declared a non-white ethnicity, compared with 16% across the UK as a whole. Of all respondents, 4.3% declared a disability, compared with 23% of working age individuals in the wider population.
Investment in sustainability and the environment has increased or remained static for most, with only 1.9% of respondents saying their budget has been cut, and 48% reporting a positive change in investment.
Nearly 48% of sustainability functions or professionals report directly to the board or CEO, and less than 1% of CEOs or equivalent are described as ‘laggards’ when it comes to involvement in sustainability and environmental initiatives.
Emissions and waste: large organisations are more likely than smaller outfits to have reduced emissions and waste to landfill. However, 28% of respondents suggested their organisation is still not measuring greenhouse gas emissions. Those that reduced emissions tended to cut by similar amounts, with 1-5% being most common regardless of size of organisation, but large organisations are 50% more likely to have reduced emissions than small and medium organisations.
Scope 3 emissions reporting remains challenging for the profession, although close to 68% of respondents have some form of measurement.
Nature, BNG and water: the majority of respondents (70%) reported that they don’t currently measure BNG, or they believe it is not a material issue. Of those that do measure it, 23% say it has remained static and 14% say it increased by 1%-5%, with limited differences between organisation size and sectors. Water consumption is not currently measured by 41% of respondents.
Only 19% said that their organisation integrates sustainability and environment criteria into job descriptions and recruitment, and even fewer have direct links to remuneration, on 6%.
The survey found that 81% of respondents believe their organisation has made a positive impact on the SDG 13 climate action goal. The next most covered goals were SDG 3 for good health and wellbeing on 72%, SDG 8 for decent work and economic growth and SDG 12 for responsible consumption and production, both on 59%.
Only 14-15% of respondents reported positive impacts on SDG 2 for zero hunger and SDG 1 for no poverty, although it may be that they reported impacts against related SDGs such as good health and wellbeing or decent work and economic growth instead.
Looking ahead, differing views emerged from the survey, interviews and workshops on whether sustainability teams will disappear. Some suggest that success is when sustainability is simply “how businesses run” and “not … done on the side”. Others argue that we will always need a dedicated function to provide strategic direction, manage external complexities, ensure accountability and stay abreast of challenges. There was near-unanimous agreement that nature and biodiversity represent the next big area of focus, and that professionals will need to:
Shift from compliance to strategic integration so that, rather than being primarily compliance-focused, sustainability is a core part of the business strategy and operations.
Have broader scope and mandate with more awareness around the interconnectivity of issues, covering topics like social impact, community engagement and climate risk, alongside traditional environmental concerns.
Increase external and internal engagement with diverse stakeholders, including communities, landowners, the supply base, customers and internal departments such as human resources, learning and development, and procurement.
Focus on value creation as there is a growing emphasis on demonstrating the commercial value of sustainability initiatives, translating sustainability goals into tangible business benefits like customer share, recruitment, retention, and savings, viewing sustainability as a means to work out where money is being wasted and where opportunities are.
Navigate complexity and uncertainty, such as evolving regulations (for example, CSRD), and geopolitical uncertainty, requiring adaptability, flexibility and the ability to prioritise effectively.
Further develop ‘soft skills’, such as communication, influencing, stakeholder engagement, building relationships, empathy, flexibility, adaptability and coaching. They must be able to translate complex technical information and communicate its relevance and value to diverse audiences.
Deepen technical expertise in evolving areas, such as biodiversity, nature, circularity, resource management and specific decarbonisation technologies, such as carbon capture. This includes understanding methodologies, such as lifecycle assessment and relevant legislation across different jurisdictions.
