What happened
Bain & Company’s fourth sustainability report estimates that governments and private businesses committed US$17 trillion to sustainable technologies over the past 10 years. The annual total reached US$2.4 trillion in 2025.
Capital was heavily concentrated. Green energy, buildings and mobility accounted for 90% of the investment. Agriculture, manufacturing and materials, and natural capital received less than 10%, despite producing about 37% of global greenhouse-gas emissions.
The report compared actual 2025 deployment of 37 sustainable technologies with projections made a decade earlier. Solar power, batteries and electric vehicles were the only technologies to outperform those forecasts. Twenty-nine were behind expectations, where technology readiness, policy support or behaviour had not developed sufficiently.
Why it matters
The findings point to a funding gap for sectors with high emissions and long-lived industrial assets. Companies in manufacturing and materials may have fewer chances to incorporate resilience measures: the report says renewal opportunities in steel and cement can arise only every 25 to 35 years.
For businesses selling sustainable products, consumer interest does not automatically translate into purchasing decisions. Survey respondents said they would pay an average premium of 18% for a sustainable product, rising to 24% when it also offered a health benefit. The report also found that 68% of consumers could not reliably identify the lower-carbon option.
Companies may therefore need to provide clear product-level sustainability information. Bain’s consumer research found that users of artificial intelligence tools increasingly use them to identify healthier and more environmentally preferable products.
Background
Bain surveyed 7,500 consumers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Brazil and Indonesia. Eighty-five per cent said they were concerned about environmental sustainability, up from 79% a year earlier. Eighty-three per cent reported adopting at least three sustainable lifestyle habits, compared with 73% in 2023.
The report also highlights differing views of artificial intelligence’s energy use. Senior professionals surveyed expected AI to account for around 11% of global energy demand within three years, while consumers expected 19%. Bain’s climate-economic modelling instead projected a share of about 0.7%.
What's next
The report identifies uneven progress across investment, technology deployment, corporate action and consumer behaviour. It indicates that companies will need to focus investment on proven opportunities while preparing for potential changes in policy, technology and customer behaviour.
