There are big positive shifts in both investment and consumer behaviour that give cause for optimism.
Whaddaya know – while the built environment has been bemoaning the lack of serious attention to its sector – amid its huge potential to reduce climate impact – it turns out that buildings have nabbed the lion’s share of available investment.
Even more interesting is that green investment has been much bigger than we thought.
And this alongside stronger consumer behaviour change than the headlines would have us believe.
The surprise is that this comes at what looks like a diabolical time for climate action, if you focused only on the US and rising jack boot politics elsewhere.
But now the data is in and it’s looking better than we thought. At least as Bain & Co tells the story in a new report, entitled The visionary CEO’s guide to sustainability 2026 – navigating divergence.
Over the past decade there’s been a $US17 ($23.8) trillion investment in climate impact initiatives – a massive $US4 ($5.6 trillion) more than expected, the report says.
And guess where the lion’s share has gone? A total of 90 per cent into green energy (57 per cent), and the balance into buildings, and mobility – the areas with “proven economics and falling cost curves”.
At the same time just 10 per cent of the investment has gone to a sector that could soon make us all feel the cost of ignoring it, agriculture, along with land use, and manufacturing and materials. Together these sectors generate 37 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The success story of renewable energy and battery storage is well known.
A little less well known is how consumers have also been transitioning to more sustainable climate friendly outcomes, but without the fanfare or labelling of these behaviour change identified as green and clean.
According to Bain & Co, consumers aren’t talking as much about sustainability, but their actions are benefiting the planet.
Their choices are skewing sustainable and AI is helping them make quick decisions, but their motivations are not so much the planet as health and costs. Local suppliers also being selected because they ease the fear of supply chain blockages.
“New interpretations of health and a growing focus on resilience have consumers living more sustainably,” the report says.
“Even consumers who say they don’t care about sustainability are adopting more sustainable habits.”
The report calls this the “do-say” gap, which is reminiscent of greenhushing that emerged a few years ago in the corporate world, where companies kept up greening behaviour but would not label it as such in case they were outed for failing their ambitions.
Looks like, unwittingly perhaps, consumers have taken on similar behaviours, but for different reasons.
Understanding of health and resilience are changing the way consumers engage with sustainability, the report says.
“Consumers limit meat and avoid microplastics, for example, because doing so is perceived to be healthier. They limit home energy use because it saves money. Different motivations are leading to the same direction of travel.”
And in a coup for the meta challenge we all face, the report says, “Everyone’s living more sustainably, even sceptics,” with limits on energy consumption and maximising recycling.
Cost is cited as a motiving influence to buy greener products, and so too the desire to avoid chemicals such as PFAS additives and pesticides.
Consumers are attracted by claims such as “natural ingredients,” “healthy,” and “organic”.
And while this sounds great, recent exposures of food labelling show that what’s on the packet is not always what’s inside.
For instance, the definition of “natural” is messy.
That’s probably stage two of consumer behaviour change.
Meanwhile, looks like people are getting it. Along with investors.
