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Sustainability investment moves towards measurable returns
Deloitte Global’s latest C-suite Sustainability Report shows how organisations are linking sustainability investment to business value, strengthening resilience and putting plans into practice across operations
For Malta’s business leaders, sustainability is increasingly a question of where to invest, how to strengthen resilience and how technology can support both. Deloitte Global’s latest survey offers a perspective on how executives elsewhere are addressing sustainability investments and building them into everyday business decisions.
2026 C-suite Sustainability Report
Sustainability in focus
For Maltese business leaders, this report brings the practical questions into focus: where is sustainability investment creating value, and how well are organisations preparing for disruption? Those questions need to be answered through day-to-day decisions and practical initiatives, not only through stated ambitions.
Ylenia Caruana, Sustainability leader, Deloitte Malta,
Deloitte surveyed 2,156 C-suite executives across 29 countries and found that sustainability remains a business priority, although organisations are taking a more focused approach to delivering results. Now in its fifth year, the research describes a shift from broad ambition towards action embedded across the organisation, with greater attention to returns, resilience and technology.
Investment with a clearer business purpose
Most respondents continue to invest: 78% say their organisations increased sustainability investment in the past year, and 83% agree that sustainability initiatives create competitive advantage. Financial outcomes influence those decisions, with 51% of executives ranking short- or long-term financial benefit as the leading factor and 77% say their sustainability investments deliver greater financial returns than other types of business investment.
That focus on results is reflected in organisations’ approaches. Almost half of respondents, 47%, say sustainability considerations are embedded across their organisation, while 30% are primarily making incremental process or operational changes. A further 18% say they are transforming their business model to address sustainability, compared with 40% in the previous year’s survey.
Resilience and technology in practice
The findings also bring resilience into sharper focus, with 63% of respondents expecting climate change to have a high or very high impact on their organisation’s strategy and operations over the next three years. Although many executives say they are prepared for physical risks, only 32% report that sustainability-related physical risks are fully integrated and routinely modelled within enterprise risk management.
Technology supports activities ranging from monitoring sustainability performance to managing supply-chain data and risk. Its use is still developing, however: 42% of respondents say their organisations use generative AI and the same proportion use AI agents, while more than 70% say overall AI use for sustainability remains at the pilot, experimental or ad hoc stage.
Together, the findings show organisations paying closer attention to how sustainability investments perform and how sustainability considerations are incorporated into operations. For Malta’s business leaders, the focus should be on measurable returns, preparedness and practical execution.
