This is the 11th edition of the State of the Profession report and the first since we became the Institute of Sustainability and Environmental Professionals (ISEP) - after more than 25 years as IEMA.
During that time, the role of sustainability has moved from the fringes of the global economy right to the centre, and the change of name reflects the crucial role the profession now plays at the heart of many organisations.
Previous editions of this report have primarily focused on the individual, including salaries, career progression and the profile of professionals at that time.
While those consistent themes remain, this report – which is based on a survey and interviews with industry leaders – also aims to provide insights on the role and impact that sustainability professionals are making within their organisations.
The findings in this report are spread across interconnected sections: Roles and Remits, Structures and Governance, Investment and Impact and The Future Landscape.
Please see a summary of the report below.
State of the Sustainability Profession Report 2025 (short version)
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State of the Sustainability Profession Report 2025 (full version)
Download Full VersionOver the last five years has seen significant shifts in expectations of sustainability and environment profession. More than 40% of individual respondents experienced a change in responsibilities in the past year, reflecting the rapidly evolving nature of the sustainability profession.
We explore those responsibilities through two lenses: the topics within their remits, such as climate mitigation and waste management, and the disciplines they apply to those topics, such as reporting and disclosure or risk management.
There is a wide and varied spread of topics within the remits of sustainability professionals, yet more than 70% of all respondents have a focus on waste management, climate change mitigation and energy efficiency, which clearly maps to regulatory and cost control pressures.
There is a potential ‘opportunity realisation gap’ as climate adaptation, renewable energy and clean technologies, and water resources/quality – all areas of potential solutions and value generation against the risk topics – are not equally covered in remits.
Despite increasing recognition from industry leaders that there is a shift towards value creation in the responsibilities of sustainability and environmental professionals, only 30% indicate that disciplines such as product and service innovation are part of their role.
While a focus on disciplines that provide value protection for organisations are far more prevalent – with 79% of respondents involved in reporting and disclosures, 76% in compliance management and assurance and 68% in risk management.
On salaries, despite challenging macro-economic times, 64% of respondents received a salary increase in the past year. This is lower than we saw in 2022, when 72% had received an increase.
ISEP Graduate level respondents have an average salary of £37,069 – up from £30,547 in 2022 – which is the same as the average salary for the whole UK workforce (£37,000 based on ONS data). While ISEP Fellows now average over £90,000/pa – an increase of over 15% since the last survey in 2022.
However the gender pay-gap that has seemingly returned to levels we last saw in 2018 after halving during the interval.
Alongside the shifting responsibilities, the level responsibility and accountability for sustainability professionals has also increased, with 48% of functions now reporting directly to the board or CEO.
While more than half of respondents regard the CEO as “leading, proactively supporting or a visible champion of sustainability and environment” – which, according to the data, may be linked to better emissions reduction performance. With fewer than 1% having CEOs that are “laggards” on sustainability.
More broadly the role of sustainability teams is shifting from solely leading efforts to acting as a central hub of expertise, enabling and supporting operational managers to take ownership. An effective route to driving cross organisational responsibility is through an efficient operational model, with 40% of respondents working within either a ‘hub and spoke’ model.
Professionals are increasingly becoming internal consultants, collaborating across various departments like marketing, operations, legal, and finance. Their role includes influencing, educating, setting direction, and bringing together different parts of the business.
What’s clear is that there is an increasing number of specialist roles with clear distinction from generalists, ranging from reporting specialists such as carbon accountants to nature specialists or focusing on emerging areas like social value.
Only 25% of respondents say their organisation has integrated sustainability into training and personal development structures, 19% include sustainability and environmental knowledge as a standard criteria in job descriptions, and only 6% directly link sustainability outcomes to remuneration.
We explore whether current macro-economic and geopolitical influences are putting pressure on businesses to deprioritise sustainability. However, less than 2% of respondents say their sustainability budgets have decreased, while almost half increased.
Just over 50% say the sustainability budget in their organisation is owned by the function, while 32% of respondents say they do not have a dedicated budget for sustainability and the environment at all.
The profession’s impact is advancing significantly, with more than two-thirds saying their organisations have moved beyond measuring only direct carbon emission (Scope 1 & 2) and measure indirect emissions (Scope 3) such as those emerging within their supply chain.
Yet 28% of responders also suggested their organisation does not measure emissions at all, 41% do not currently measure water consumption and 60% of relevant organisations don’t measure biodiversity net gain.
Finally, when cross referencing carbon emission reductions and the value that organisational leadership places on sustainability, 80% of responders with emissions reductions above 50% had CEOs that were described as “leading, proactively supporting or a visible champion of sustainability and environment”.
Looking to the future landscape, we gain a rich and varied picture of the potential future for the profession. We explore the new and in-demand roles appearing in the profession, debate whether the future success of sustainability equals mainstreaming at the expense of dedicated teams, and ask whether creating value should really be the domain of sustainability and environmental professionals.
