Last year, the SEC withdrew its defense of the yet-to-be-implemented sustainability reporting rule, ensuring that US companies would not be subject to a federal reporting requirement anytime soon. SEC Acting Chairman Mark T. Uyeda called the rule “costly and unnecessarily intrusive.” In December, a similar argument won in the EU, greatly reducing the requirements of the CSRD and CSDDD and the number of companies that would be subject to it. 

At the same time, investors and financial institutions have largely maintained their position that ESG performance and sustainability reporting are closely tied to a company’s long-term risk, growth, and opportunity. According to PwC’s Global Investor Survey 2025, 78% of respondents feel that materiality assessments and sustainability disclosures increase investor engagement, and about 4 in 10 respondents “rely heavily” on this information to evaluate risk and opportunity. 

Sustainability reporting is also becoming more accessible. Regulatory bodies have been consolidating standards to simplify the process and make reports more comparable. And even state requirements like California’s SB 253 and SB 261 follow prominent standards used around the world. A growing assortment of dedicated solutions have emerged to make data collection easier, improve data accuracy, and even generate reports.  

So what does this all mean for sustainability reporting in 2026? Will enterprises and SMBs deprioritize sustainability reporting? How will companies navigate the changing legislative landscape? What does the near future of sustainability reporting look like? As a leading provider of sustainability reporting and energy management technology, we’ve identified five forces shaping corporate disclosure this year. 

2026 Sustainability reporting trends 

Based on the latest surveys and reports, coupled with our own experience as a sustainability reporting software vendor with clients around the world, here are the trends we expect to see over the course of 2026: 

• Industry leaders will invest in sustainability reporting despite postponed regulations 
• Investment in dedicated sustainability reporting technology will surpass 2025 highs 
• AI will play a greater role in generating sustainability reports 
• Suppliers will face more pressure to provide reliable Scope 3 data 
• Tracking compliance will become more complicated 

1. Industry leaders will invest in sustainability reporting despite postponed regulations 

Investors still want transparent, meaningful sustainability data, whether regulators demand it or not. While the stated arguments for delays have focused on things like costs and time constraints, the reality is that leading companies have been listening to investors for years and preparing for mandatory reporting all along.  

In many cases, the technological investments have already been made. The processes are in place. And it’s not just preparation for future regulations. It’s a competitive advantage today. 

Regulators can make disclosures optional for now, but companies must weigh more than the cost savings of not reporting—delaying comes with its own downsides. A quality sustainability report can offer investors greater assurance that one company is a better choice over another. It can position an organization as a leader in their space, and reinforce a brand’s alignment with their customers’ values. And perhaps that’s why so many companies aren’t adjusting their disclosure plans in the wake of regulatory delays.  

PwC’s Global Reporting Survey asked enterprises about the impact of regulatory delays, and 40% of respondents said “they’ll report on the original timeline, even if not legally required to do so, whether under the CSRD or an alternative framework like the ISSB or the Global Reporting Initiative.” 

Most of the companies PwC surveyed are going to wait. But according to the International Federation of Accountants, 99% of the top 100 U.S. companies they surveyed were producing sustainability reports as of May 2025. And the vast majority (87.9%) had third party assurance as well.  

Industry leaders have already made the necessary investments and laid the groundwork for sustainability reporting. They’re also under the most pressure to report from investors and regulators alike. So we expect that they’ll move forward with disclosures regardless of regulatory delays, further strengthening their leading positions. When leading companies delay, it will present an opportunity for challengers to gain meaningful ground in the competitive landscape. 

2. Investment in dedicated sustainability reporting technology will surpass 2025 highs 

The biggest objection to implementing disclosure requirements is that sustainability reporting is too costly and time consuming. There’s an overwhelming volume of data to collect, organize, and analyze. And audits, which are essential for quality assurance, are expensive. 

This objection plays out—but only sometimes. Without dedicated energy management software, sustainability reporting software, or carbon accounting solutions to satisfy disclosure requirements, manually assembling the necessary data in spreadsheets and continually updating it requires substantial ongoing time investment, and leaves a lot more room for error.  

On the other hand, dedicated sustainability reporting solutions like Tango Energy & Sustainability integrate directly with your utility providers, automatically importing bills, standardizing your data, and even auditing it for common errors like duplicate billing periods, incorrect taxes, and meter data discrepancies. 

You spend less time digging through energy data—and so do your auditors. Modern sustainability reporting software effectively addresses several of the main objections to implementing disclosure requirements. 

According to the PwC Global Reporting Survey, 66% of global companies said they’ve increased the resources they’ve devoted to sustainability reporting, and 65% said senior leadership has spent more time on reporting. 

At the same time, nearly half of companies that published disclosures believe better tech would’ve made a major difference for them. According to PwC, “47% of global companies who have filed say more effective use of technology would have improved the reporting process, and 46% say earlier validation of data would have also helped.” 

We expect 2026 sustainability software investments to surpass 2025 levels as more companies recognize the value dedicated tools can bring to the process. 

3. AI will play a greater role in generating sustainability reports 

AI is constantly improving and expanding into more sophisticated use cases. Sustainability reporting is no exception. Last year, Google published its first sustainability report that was produced using AI. At the end of 2025, they also published an AI Playbook for Sustainability Reporting to help other companies leverage AI in their reports. 

Unsurprisingly, the number of companies using AI for sustainability reporting is growing rapidly. In their Global Reporting Survey, PwC noted that “Companies who have already reported told us that their use of AI for sustainability reporting almost tripled to 28%, from 11% last year.” 

Data is the foundation of sustainability reporting. It’s also what makes disclosures so time-consuming. With the early success of Google and other early adopters, we can expect more companies to lean on AI capabilities to consolidate, analyze, and transform their data. 

4. Suppliers will face more pressure to provide reliable Scope 3 data 

Arguably, the greatest contributor to the cost and labor of sustainability disclosure requirements has been Scope 3 emissions, which report on upstream and downstream emissions across a company’s supply chain. This requires significant cooperation from suppliers, and in the past, it’s been difficult to incentivize this cooperation or validate the quality of any data third parties have available. 

In MIT’s 2025 State of Supply Chain Sustainability Report, about 70 percent of survey respondents cited lack of supplier data as the main challenge with Scope 3 emissions reporting. 

But after years of financial stakeholders demanding this data, and with net-zero targets looming, some enterprises are considering Scope 3 disclosures when selecting suppliers. And industry initiatives like SteelZero and RE100 are leveraging these companies’ collective power to increase pressure on suppliers. 

Time is running out for companies to prepare for mandatory Scope 3 reporting—and to reach sustainability targets. 

“While ‘no data, no contract’ is an overstatement for most current procurement processes, carbon performance is increasingly influencing supplier selection and contract terms,” CO2 AI writes. “Most major CPG brands have established 2025-2030 timeframes for comprehensive supplier carbon data collection, aligned with their own interim net-zero targets.” 

Even without mandatory disclosure requirements in place, companies urgently need supplier emissions data, and suppliers ready to provide it will look increasingly appealing, even if they’re less competitive in other areas. 

5. Tracking compliance will become more complicated 

Unfortunately, with the postponement of widespread reporting requirements like CSRD and CSDDD, and the lack of any federal requirements in the US, it’s going to be increasingly difficult for large enterprises to track which locations are subject to which reporting requirements.  

As individual states, cities, and countries establish and enforce standards to meet their own sustainability goals, companies with large portfolios will have a growing, yet fragmented list of milestones and deadlines to monitor and follow. 

Simplifying compliance (even as it gets messier) is one of several ways that dedicated sustainability solutions reduce operating costs and improve risk management, particularly for companies with numerous locations and distributed operations. Tango Energy & Sustainability, for example, tracks each location’s applicable compliance regulations and requirements, conveniently highlighting your obligations and penalties for non-compliance. 

Until every location is subject to the same (or similar) reporting standards, companies need location-specific compliance monitoring. And since major reporting requirements were delayed, softened, or abandoned last year, that’s only going to be harder in the near future. 

Stay ahead of sustainability reporting trends with Tango 

Sustainability reporting isn’t going away, even if government officials continue to delay mandatory requirements. Industry leaders are leveraging their sustainability reports to increase investor confidence, and are learning the advantage accurate data brings to the table. As compliance becomes more complicated and sustainability continues to play an increasingly important role in business decisions, companies that haven’t invested in dedicated solutions will struggle to keep up. 

As a leading provider of sustainability reporting software, Tango gives enterprises the visibility and capabilities they need to quickly and confidently generate accurate, meaningful disclosures. Whether you’re publishing voluntary reports for investors and customers or mandatory reports for regulators, Tango Energy & Sustainability has you covered. 
 
Want to see what Tango can do for you? 
 
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