S&P Global's Top 10 Sustainability Trends to Watch in 2026

S&P Global's Top 10 Sustainability Trends to Watch in 2026 S&P Global’s sustainability, climate and energy transition leaders and analysts were surveyed about the areas expected to most influence sustainability strategy and decision-making in 2026. This article lays out 10 key trends for the year, along with links to datasets, research and further reading. Sustainability in 2026 will be a story of how stakeholders balance near-term priorities with long-term realities. Businesses will seek strategies to navigate the current political environment even as many of their projects and investments extend beyond election cycles. Governments will be increasingly engaged with balancing immediate needs — such as energy security, affordability and availability — with climate change and nature loss. Addressing these urgent and sometimes competing demands will require coordinated action at a time when multilateralism is giving way to fragmentation and multiregionalism. Listen: Can AI Solve Its Own Energy Challenge? A Conversation with Varun Sivaram, Emerald AI In this episode of the “CERAWeek Podcast with Atul Arya,” S&P Global’s chief energy strategist spoke with Varun Sivaram, founder and CEO of Emerald AI, to examine how the rapid expansion of AI data centers is transforming electricity demand, infrastructure planning and global competition. AI’s future hinges on chip innovation, but also on the availability of power. Flexibility and efficiency will determine whether AI can scale without straining power grids or driving up energy costs. As energy, technology and geopolitics increasingly converge, these topics will be central to the dialogue at CERAWeek 2026, to be held March 23–27 in Houston.