Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly treated as a business capability rather than a stand-alone initiative. In 2024 research, executives connected sustainability with strategy and results, while consumers, employees, and investors continued to raise expectations for credible action. The statistics below show where commitment is strongest, where execution lags, and which measures leaders can use to make responsibility more operational.
Contents
- CSR strategy and business value
- Investment, data, and execution
- Consumer expectations
- Employee purpose, ethics, and talent
- Climate action and operations
- Accountability, AI, and transition planning
CSR strategy and business value
IBM’s 2024 study surveyed 5,000 C-suite executives across 22 countries and 22 industries. The results suggest that sustainability has moved into the strategic conversation, although execution remains uneven. In that sample, 76% agreed that sustainability was central to business strategy, and 75% agreed that it drove better business results. At the same time, 69% said sustainability needed to become a higher priority in their organization.
The execution gap narrowed but did not disappear. Thirty percent said their organizations had made significant progress executing their sustainability strategy, up from 10% a year earlier. This is a reported year-over-year change in the IBM research, not an independent assessment of performance across all companies.
The business case was stronger where sustainability was embedded throughout the organization. Organizations with that level of embedding were 75% more likely than less-embedded organizations to attribute greater revenue improvement to sustainability efforts. They were also 52% more likely to outperform peers on profitability. These are comparative findings from the study; they do not establish that embedding sustainability alone caused the revenue or profitability difference.
Deloitte’s 2024 research surveyed 2,103 C-level executives in 27 countries. Forty-five percent said they were transforming their business model so climate and sustainability were central to organizational strategy. Ninety-two percent believed their company could grow while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Looking ahead five years, innovation around offerings or operations was the top expected sustainability benefit for 38% of respondents.
For leadership teams, these figures point to three practical questions: Is CSR represented in the core strategy? Can leaders show how it affects revenue, resilience, or profitability? And is the organization measuring progress beyond commitments?
Investment, data, and execution
The same IBM executive sample shows why strategy does not automatically produce results. Forty-seven percent said they struggled to fund sustainability investments, while 60% said they had to make trade-offs between financial and sustainability outcomes. In the sample, spending on sustainability reporting exceeded spending on sustainability innovation by 43%. Reporting is necessary for accountability, but an imbalance of this kind can indicate that measurement is advancing faster than operational change.
Data use was another weak point. Only 31% said their organizations incorporated sustainability data and insights into operational improvements to a great extent. The corresponding figure for innovation initiatives was just 14%. Yet 82% agreed that high-quality data and transparency were necessary to achieve sustainability outcomes. About 40% could automatically source sustainability data from at least one core business system.
The gap between recognizing data’s importance and using it broadly matters for CSR programs. If data is collected only for reporting, leaders may struggle to connect responsible-business goals to procurement, product design, energy use, workforce planning, or customer outcomes. Automatic sourcing from core systems can reduce manual work, but the statistic does not indicate how complete, accurate, or comparable those data flows were.
Skills were the top barrier to sustainability progress for 39% of surveyed executives. Technology was viewed as part of the answer: 64% agreed that generative AI would be important for their sustainability efforts, and 73% planned to increase investment in generative AI for sustainability. These findings describe executive expectations and planned investment in 2024; they do not quantify realized emissions reductions or other outcomes from AI.
Consumer expectations
PwC’s 2024 Voice of the Consumer Survey included more than 20,000 consumers across 31 countries and territories. More than four-fifths, or 80%, said they were willing to pay more for sustainably produced or sourced goods. The reported average premium was 9.7%. Consumer willingness to pay is an expectation measure, not a guarantee that every product can command that premium in the market.
Climate disruption was personally visible to many respondents: 85% said they had experienced its disruptive effects firsthand in daily life. Forty-six percent said they were buying more sustainable products to reduce environmental impact, while 43% were making more considered purchases to reduce overall consumption. Thirty-one percent said they were traveling less or differently as a personal climate action, and 24% had purchased or planned to purchase an electric vehicle.
Consumers also use concrete signals when judging responsible business. Production methods and recycling were each used by 40% to assess producers’ practices. Eco-friendly packaging was a signal for 38%, and positive impact on nature and water conservation was a signal for 34%.
| Consumer measure | Share reported in PwC’s 2024 survey |
|---|---|
| Willing to pay more for sustainable goods | 80% |
| Buying more sustainable products | 46% |
| Making more considered purchases | 43% |
| Using production methods or recycling as a signal | 40% |
| Using eco-friendly packaging as a signal | 38% |
| Using nature and water conservation as a signal | 34% |
Digital discovery and purchasing are also relevant to CSR communication. Forty-six percent had purchased products directly through social media in 2024, compared with 21% in 2019. Sixty-seven percent used social media to discover new brands. The comparison covers different measurement years and should be read as a reported change in the survey, not as a causal finding.
Employee purpose, ethics, and talent
Deloitte’s 2024 Gen Z and Millennial Survey covered 22,841 respondents across 44 countries, with fieldwork from November 24, 2023, to March 11, 2024. Purpose was closely connected to well-being and job satisfaction: 86% of Gen Z respondents and 89% of millennial respondents said purpose was important to those outcomes.
Personal values also affected work decisions. Half of Gen Z respondents said they had rejected an assignment because of personal ethics or beliefs, compared with 43% of millennials. Forty-four percent of Gen Z respondents said they had rejected an employer for those reasons, compared with 40% of millennials.
Climate concern was widespread. Sixty-two percent of Gen Z respondents said they had felt anxious or worried about climate change in the past month. The corresponding share among millennials was 59%. Pressure inside the workplace was also reported: 54% of Gen Z respondents and 48% of millennials said they and their colleagues were putting pressure on employers to act on climate change.
These figures make CSR relevant to talent decisions, not only external reputation. A responsible-business policy that is not reflected in assignments, employer behavior, or operational choices may be tested by employees before it is tested by customers. The survey percentages show reported attitudes and experiences; they do not measure retention, productivity, or hiring outcomes.
Climate action and operations
Deloitte’s executive research found that 85% of the 2,103 CxOs surveyed had increased sustainability investment in the previous year, up from 75% in 2023. Seventy percent expected climate change to have a high or very high impact on company strategy and operations over the next three years.
Technology adoption was in transition. Half had begun implementing technology solutions to achieve climate or environmental goals, while another 42% expected to implement such solutions within two years. Together, these figures describe implementation status and near-term expectations; they are not a forecast of completed projects or quantified environmental impact.
Executives identified business benefits alongside environmental goals. Supply-chain efficiency or resilience was cited by 37% as a benefit of climate action, and operating margins were also cited by 37%. Forty-nine percent said their organizations were actively preparing workers for green jobs. Fifty-five percent considered a just transition extremely important, up from 46% in the prior year.
For leaders, climate-related CSR can therefore be assessed through operating indicators as well as public commitments: investment trend, technology deployment, supply-chain resilience, margin relevance, and workforce preparation. The available percentages show executive views and organizational actions, not a universal benchmark for every sector.
Accountability, AI, and transition planning
IBM’s research shows that organizations embedding sustainability often justify investment through business value. Among those organizations, 53% said business benefits were essential for justifying sustainability investments. Only 17% said meeting sustainability objectives alone was sufficient to justify investment.
Embedding was also associated with stronger alignment between systems and decisions. Organizations embedding sustainability were 191% more likely than less-embedded organizations to have aligned data and sustainability strategies to a great extent. They were 80% more likely to use AI for sustainability to a great extent. These are relative comparisons between groups in the IBM study, not claims that a specific level of AI use will produce a fixed return.
IBM’s State of Sustainability Readiness 2024 research adds a broader technology perspective. Ninety percent of respondents believed AI could contribute to sustainability outcomes. Sixty-one percent viewed IT investments for sustainability as an opportunity for growth rather than cost mitigation, and 88% planned to increase investment in IT for sustainability.
The statistics suggest a clear accountability model for CSR leadership: define the intended social or environmental outcome, connect it to relevant business measures, establish reliable data ownership, and disclose the limits of what has been measured. That approach is especially important when organizations use forecasts, planned investments, or executive expectations. A plan to implement technology, increase AI spending, or prepare workers for green jobs is not the same as a completed outcome.
Across the 2024 studies, CSR sits at the intersection of strategy, customer trust, employee values, operational resilience, and transition planning. The strongest reported business associations appear where sustainability is embedded, data is connected to decisions, and responsibility is treated as part of how the organization operates.
Sources
- IBM Study: Sustainability Remains a Business Imperative, But Current Approaches are Falling Short
- How to drive sustainability and business value in the era of AI
- Consumers willing to pay 9.7% sustainability premium, even as cost-of-living and inflationary concerns weigh: PwC 2024 Voice of the Consumer Survey
- Deloitte’s 2024 Gen Z and Millennial Survey finds these generations stay true to their values as they navigate a quickly changing world
- Executives say sustainability investments are up, new Deloitte research reveals