Perspective & Insights:

The sustainability landscape is evolving in 2025, but it is not going anywhere. Current themes include: work continues, but without the public communications; Projects that have a strong ROI are still going strong; organizations are re-prioritizing efforts against the highest value work; Local and state efforts continue to ramping up in many areas; Regulatory, reputational and operational risks still exist and most organizations are still doing the work to ensure they are prepared.

• How Institutional Investors Are Ramping Up Climate Investments In 2025. A recent Mercer Investment study of 74 large asset owners-- with more than $2 trillion in assets--found that 70% now integrate responsible investment goals into their strategies, a seven percentage jump from last year.

• How are businesses responding to climate risk? (article, 3 minute read). Federal Reserve Bank of SF

• Pew Research Center, May 2025: Support for stricter environmental regulations outweighs opposition in a majority of states (article, 3 min)

• The 2025 edition of BNP Paribas’ biennial ESG survey shows institutional investors remain committed to sustainable investing

• Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) summary (article, 3-5 min read, plus link to download Deloitte .pdf) by the EDF (Environmental Defense Fund). Note that while a lot of climate legislation is evolving, bipartisan support for this one still continues into 2025 so far, and public support generally continues. Here is a summary of the current state from Natixis.

• A majority of registered voters want federal agencies to increase their efforts to protect people from the health harms of global warming (survey, 2 minute read) Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. May 2025

• Risk of PFAS and other chemicals (podcast 35 min) - does your business have exposure?

• Stepping back, but not backing out. Pepsi pulls back on some of its sustainability goals, but still aligns with a 1.5 degree target.

• Microsoft’s journey to carbon negative by 2030 and lessons learned (article, 3 min read)

• JPMorgan hired NOAA’s chief scientist to advise clients on navigating climate change (May 31, 2025, 3 minute read + 1 min video)