Have anti-ESG policies strengthened corporate sustainability?

Corporate sustainability in the U.S. is agonizing. At least that is the impression the flurry of recent media reports and commentators will leave upon you.

Not without reason. Federal rhetoric and policy have turned markedly against corporate climate action.

A year before the One Big Beautiful Bill (OB3) was signed into law, rolling back tax credits from renewable energy projects, the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives released a report condemning a “climate cartel” that is forcing U.S. businesses to decarbonize.

On 8 August 2025, attorneys general representing 23 states sent a letter to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) demanding information on its new Financial Institutions Net-Zero Standard, claiming it may violate antitrust laws. A similar accusation was lodged in a lawsuit against asset managers BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street Global.

It is also true that many companies are going quiet about their climate commitments. The major U.S. banks have exited net-zero coalitions, corporations such as Alphabet have removed sustainability from their annual reports, and the language of ESG is increasingly seen as a liability.

But while it’s tempting to conclude that climate action is dying out, looking at companies’ actions rather than their public communication, tells a story of resilient climate commitments — perhaps more so than ever before.

Finding stability in unstable times

The Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) market is a good thermometer of corporate action.

The price of National Green-e RECs, the flagship product for voluntary clean energy buyers, has remained stable for the past six months. In other words, voluntary demand for renewables, one of the clearest indicators of corporate sustainability engagement, has not waned. “We have not seen evidence of companies cancelling or pausing their renewable energy purchases,” Ross Pierson, CEO of Ecohz Inc., says.

Buying patterns, however, might change. As Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), long-term contracts for electricity off-take, become more expensive in the U.S. due to the expiry of tax credits, corporate buyers could turn to the unbundled REC market.

“Companies see in unbundled RECs the possibility to buy the renewable volumes they need in a predictable way,” Pierson adds. “They can cover their current consumption —or even that of the next two to three years— without tying themselves in longer commitments as they wait to see how things develop.”

Amid regulatory uncertainty, the voluntary REC space has become a safe bet that could kickstart a virtuous cycle: solid markets attract more buyers, in turn strengthening demand and increasing the confidence that underpins the market system.

Importantly, the big players are not going away. If anything, they are becoming more engaged.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the leading standard for reducing emissions worldwide, is currently reviewing its Scope 2 Guidance. The process has seen Amazon and Google, some of the world’s largest clean energy buyers, lead intense discussions on improvements to the RECs system that could boost CO₂ reductions. They do not agree on the methods. However, they are not debating whether they will continue to source renewable energy, but how to do it better.

Corporate renewable energy pledges are growing in the U.S. and beyond. 2025 is set to become the biggest year yet in terms of contracted renewable energy volumes for members of the Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA). Meanwhile, RE100, the global initiative gathering companies committed to using 100% renewable electricity, saw a record number of new members in 2024, especially in Asia.

Pending data updates, the demand for renewable electricity documented with I-RECs, the global renewable energy certificate system, is estimated to reach 230 TWh in 2024 — a 5% increase from the year before. At the same time, manufacturers such as Logitech are ramping up clean energy initiatives to include their entire supply chains.

Using renewable energy is now a feature of leading businesses — and judging by the numbers, the trend is here to stay.

Sustainability is driving financial value

Earlier this year, Forbes Research published a report showing that 67% of business C-suite leaders consider sustainability a top-three priority, up from 22% just three years ago. Most of them — a whopping 89% — are planning to increase their sustainability budgets, featuring renewable energy and lowering GHG emissions among their top five goals.

Sustainability performance is increasingly considered a driver of financial gains. Morgan Stanley found that 88% of companies globally “see sustainability as a value creation opportunity,” while 83% think ROI on sustainability-related activities is as easy to quantify as for other investments. The upsides they see? Higher profitability, lower cost of capital, greater visibility over cash flows, and reduced capital intensity.

Companies may be less vocal about it, but their environmentally minded investments are ever more tightly knit to their bottom lines.

“We have gone from ‘look at me’ to doing things quietly and creating value — more about winning with sustainability than seeking recognition,” Knut Haanaes, researcher at the IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, said.

Global businesses are further squeezed between the U.S. and Europe’s conflicting environmental priorities. In September 2025, Dutch pension fund PFZW pulled 248 billion Euros from BlackRock due to new sustainability policies. Large undertakings in the EU still face reporting obligations, while importers will soon start paying carbon quotas.

The ESG backlash is real. It is also not rare that sustainability experts are rallying to convince business leaders that the storm will pass, that this is just a transition and that their work to reduce emissions will pay off. But perhaps they need not worry so much. Amid the political uncertainty, sustainability may have already become what we always wanted it to be — a core pillar of doing good business.