Sustainability at the local level

Examining survey results by country reveals how external factors like government regulations, public sentiment, investor preferences, and customer demand influence how organizations establish and pursue their sustainability goals.

For example, engineers and executives in countries with stronger government sustainability mandates like China and India — both of which have seen increasing greenhouse gas emissions in recent years — were most likely to say that sustainability is extremely important to their organization (69% and 71%, respectively, compared to 53% globally). On the other hand, respondents from the U.S. and Japan were less likely to say that sustainability is extremely important to their organizations (42% and 48%, respectively), reflecting the fact that neither country has strong, national sustainability regulations.

Yet one interesting result shows that external factors alone do not automatically cause organizations to prioritize sustainability. Surprisingly, engineers and executives in Germany were least likely to say that sustainability is extremely important (38%), despite dedicated support from the German government and public for sustainability measures and strict European Union reporting requirements.

When looking deeper into the data, we found that this low figure may reflect slow progress within German organizations in implementing sustainability plans and communicating those plans with employees. For example, respondents from Germany were more likely to say that budget constraints were a major challenge in meeting their sustainability goals (23% vs. 18% globally). They were also most likely to say that even though their company has sustainability goals in place, it is not clear what they are (39% vs. 30% globally).